Sting chats about his stage show The Last Ship at Birmingham's New Alexandra Theatre

He’s standing by the piano. The diminutive but unmistakeable figure of Sting is standing beside his musical director as a dozen or so players gather at Gateshead’s Sage Theatre for a morning rehearsal. Dressed immaculately in a low-cut black T-shirt and expensive leather jacket, Sting is observing his charges as they work through his musical, The Last Ship. Power is in the air.

The producer – Lorne Campbell – is working closely with a band of players, mainly from the North East, that includes Jimmy Nail. They discuss the rhythm of the music, the punctuations in the dialogue, the meaning behind the words.

And all the time Sting watches on, taking it all in, making sure the players are staying true to his original design.

When he moves away from the piano to stand among the cluster of journalists and PRs, eyes guiltily follow his movements. And later, there is unbridled glee. “Yes, he stood next to me for five minutes,” someone says. “He was very calm.”

The fascination is perhaps no surprise. For Sting is one of the world’s greatest musicians. The seller of more than 100 million records, with The Police and as a solo artist, Sting has accrued awards like Sir Alex Ferguson once collected football trophies.

He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he received a CBE from The Queen at Buckingham Palace, he partied with then-President Barack Obama when he was made a Kennedy Centre Honouree at the White House and this year he was awarded the Polar Music Prize – the equivalent of a Noble award.

He has received an astounding 16 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and four Oscar nominations. And his friends include Madonna and Robert De Niro; the crème de la crème from the world of music and acting.

Having achieved extraordinary success with The Police, four of whose five albums went to number one, he achieved even greater solo success. On both sides of the Atlantic, he remains a huge star – a bona fide A-Lister – and his most recent album, 57th and 9th, was a top 10 hit around the world. At the age of 66, the milkman’s son from Wallsend, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, remains as luminescent a star as ever he was. And so it’s no surprise, therefore, that every eye follows him as rehearsals begin.

Sting has been back in Newcastle for four days. Already he’s made headlines. Having gone drinking with old pals before striking up some music in a local club, he’s generated headlines in the local and national press for simply being Sting. ‘Sting sings in club – Shocker’ . . . said the headlines.

He’s here to work on his musical, The Last Ship, which he wrote at the start of the decade to reflect on his early years in Wallsend. It is set in the 1980s amid the shipbuilding industry and received two Tony Award nominations after enjoying a run in Chicago, on Broadway and in Salt Lake City. The production features his old mate, Jimmy Nail – the two go back years – and it cost more than £10 million to stage in the USA. It didn’t make its money back.

It was inspired by Sting’s 1991 album, The Soul Cages, and reflects on the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the North East. That structural decline in industry is a powerful metaphor for changing times across the UK: the loss of jobs to robots, the orders lost to China and the Far East, the shrinking of our industrial economy and the diminution of the State. It will be on the road in spring, visiting the New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, from April 16-21. And, though it’s as relevant to the factory-and-foundry-less Black Country as it is to the North East, Sting is particularly proud that it will open its run in March at Northern Stage, near his old home.

“It’s great to be back in Newcastle. I mean it started across the river six or seven years ago. We had a similar workshop and I invited some shipyard workers from Wallsend to basically give their permission. And I said: ‘Well what do you think? Is it alright’. And they said: ‘Yes, it’s alright’.

“I asked: ‘Do you think we should carry on’. And they said: ‘Aye, you should carry on’. So that was enough. To come back here now and be opening at the theatre in which I began my professional, musical life in, as a bass player, 45 years ago, is wonderful. I feel really honoured.”

The volume of work involved in creating a musical is vast. The score, the script, the staging, the choreography, the lighting, the design . . . Sting has been intrinsically involved in all aspects. On this new production, he is working with Lorne Campbell, the artistic director of Northern Stage, a graduate of Channel 4’s Young Theatre Director scheme. Together, they have created a personal, political and passionate new musical that features some of Sting’s best loved songs, such as Island of Souls, All This Time and When We Dance.

“It’s constantly evolving. Having done a production on Broadway and having seen a version in Helsinki last week in addition to the show in Salt Lake City, this is a totally different iteration. The themes are the same and the arc of the story is the same, but we’ve narrowed the strands of the story down into something simpler. Maybe it was too complicated in Broadway. Lorne has been instrumental in that. We have something that is new and I’m very happy.”

Sting’s work was inspired by The Soul Cages, a remarkable record that, in turn, was inspired by the death of his father. Sting developed his worth ethic from engineer and milkman Ernest Matthew Sumner, who rose at five every day and who took his 10-year-old son out on the rounds to earn pocket money.

They had a complicated relationship. Ernest found it difficult to articulate his emotions, which led to Sting’s mother, Audrey, having an affair with one of her husband’s colleagues. Her liaison was doomed and after unhappily reconciling, the two lived out seemingly grey lives before both dying from cancer within a year of one another. Sting was conditioned by his family not to express himself – but, having been waved at by the Queen Mother as she drove through Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Sting decided to break away. Music was his escape. And it was music that he turned to his third full-length studio album, The Soul Cages, when he wanted to reflect on his feelings following his father’s death. In 2010, Sting mentioned that he was working on a ‘mood piece’ in collaboration with Pulitzer winner Brian Yorkey, based on The Soul Cages. The ‘mood piece’ was The Last Ship and Sting thinks his father would have admired it.

“My dad? I’m sure he’s watching from somewhere. I think he would understand it. His father was a shipbuilder, he built turbines, and he saw my trajectory and didn’t quite understand it. But I think he would appreciate that I’ve come home to honour where I come from.

“It’s fascinating. In this town, they’re not going to sit there and be insulted.”

The Last Ship features a number of killer lines, like: ‘We’ve got nowt else’. It shows how ensnared workers were by long hours, menial pay and exploitative bosses.

Sting says: “What else did people have? Me as a kid, I grew up next to a shipyard. At one point, I was thinking: ‘Is that what I have to do to be a man’? Maybe, but I didn’t want it. Luckily, I got into grammar school and I had a dream about being a musician. But for most people there was simply no choice. And if the shipyard disappeared . . . panic. Anxiety. Fear.”

Sting is a remarkably engaging interviewee, providing we stick to the rules. There’s an unwritten instruction that we’re to keep our questions to The Last Ship. He’s not here to talk about The Police, his personal life, films, his solo career or his life as a political activist. Though gradually, as he relaxes, we move away from The Last Ship a little.

He’s lithe and muscular, slender and toned. His accent features a slew of American-isms, that he’s picked up along the way, or while living at his New York city flat or his beach house in Malibu. But beneath are the round Geordie vowels that he grew up with. He recalls with fondness his early years in Newcastle.

“I was siphoned off into the Grammar school at 11. I passed the 11-plus and I was separated from that community. It was quite a violent separation. So, in a way, this play is me trying to make my way back and honour the community that I came from, willingly, but that none the less was troubling.

“By then, I’d already realised I didn’t belong. I saw myself as a ship. I was launched, I was out of there. I wasn’t coming back. And then, of course, I’m back now. I’ve reached that point in my life where I can do that. My job is to tell the story.”

His roots are remarkably important to him. Why else would a man, who also owns homes in the Lake District, a 60-acre estate near Salisbury, a cottage in the Lake District and a 600-acre estate in Tuscany, as well as two homes in London, return? The yoga-practising, Newcastle United-supporting agnostic, who donates money to such North East causes as the reconstruction of an outdoor swimming pool at Tynemouth, retains his affinity.

“Newcastle and this river are hugely emotionally important to me. A lot of the imagery and metaphors that I’ve used in my career have come from my upbringing; from my religious upbringing and the streets that I was brought up in.

“These huge symbols feature. I was brought up in a surreal industrial environment that I took for granted. Now I realise that they were a gift, a total gift for me as a writer. It’s wonderful. I make my living in a wonderful way.”

Sting has collaborated with the biggest stars in the world – from Lady Gaga to Robert Downey Jr, from Rod Stewart to Bryan Adams, from Phil Collins to Julio Iglesias and Dire Straits. Yet he is as energised by his work with a group of youthful, emerging and as-yet-unknown actors as he is by his duets with any of the above. There is no pecking order. Those brave enough and bold enough are just as entitled to share their opinions as the man who wrote The Last Ship. “It’s a wonderful collaborative experience. Everybody is asked for their opinions and gives their opinions so the show is morphing into a community rather than a hierarchy and I’m part of that community, I’m here to help.”

Too many nights on stages around the world has slowly robbed Sting of his hearing. He is reasonably deaf and though he tried wearing a hearing aid, he found it meant he was hearing more than he wanted to. So, today, each question is repeated back to us, as though the singer is seeking affirmation that he is setting off on the right route.

He talks about his experiences on Broadway, where The Last Ship opened to an audience featuring Billy Joel, Robert De Niro and Liam Neeson. Though Sting appeared in later versions of it, to galvanise other actors and boost the box office, the show came to an early close.

“It was wonderful to get to Broadway. The idea that you could be there and achieve it with great reviews and Tony nominations . . . You know, we didn’t make our money back, but that’s normal, it’s par for the course. But it didn’t make me despondent at all. It was the most fun I’d have ever. It made me more determined to make it work.”

And work it will.

The Last Ship is charting a course around some of the UK’s biggest and best theatres with Sting’s mate, Captain Jimmy Nail, at the helm. It’s sailing into calm seas.

The Last Ship is at New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, from April 16 to 21.

From humble beginnings and a brush with The Police, Sting has done it all . . .

Sting was the oldest of four children, born in 1951 at Wallsend, in Northumberland.

He was inspired as a child between the age of eight and 10 to become a musician. He had seen the Queen Mother wave at him as she was driven in a Rolls-Royce near to his home. The incident inspired him to move towards a more glamorous life than he might otherwise have led. He soon became obsessed with the Spanish guitar and embarked upon his career as a musician.

Sting had a number of jobs before making it as a bass player. He worked as a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer, as well as a teacher at St Paul’s First School, in Cramlington. However, he performed jazz each evening, playing with the Newcastle Big Band and Last Exit.

Sting’s nickname came from Phoenix Jazzmen Bandleader Gordon Solomon, who remarked that the musician’s black-and-yellow jumper and spiky blonde hair made him look like a wasp.

Moving to London from Newcastle during the height of punk, in 1977, helped Sting to breakthrough. He joined Stewart Copeland and, later, Andy Summers, to form The Police. They had five best-selling albums between 1978 and 1983 and won two Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards and more before breaking up.

Sting’s decision to quit was made while on tour. The Police played Shea Stadium, which had previously welcomed The Beatles, on August 18, 1983. Sting felt the band had reached its Mount Everest and could progress no further. So, afterwards, the band members went their separate ways. Sting frequently dismissed the possibility of them ever playing together again, though in 2007 they reformed for a world tour.

Sting’s remarkable solo career has been even more successful than his years with The Police. His second album, Nothing Like The Sun, was dedicated to his mother, shortly after she died. His third album, The Soul Cages, was in memory of his father, who died within a year of his mother.

Ten Summer’s Tales gave Sting one of his greatest success. It peaked at number two in the UK and US album charts and went triple platinum in just over a year. Recorded at his Elizabethan country home, Lake House, in Wiltshire, it was nominated for a Mercury Prize and a Grammy. The title was inspired by his surname and The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Sting has worked with guest artists from Bono to Nicole Scherzinger and toured jointly with Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel. In 2011, he was described by Time Magazine as being one of the most influential people in the world.

Sting’s work for human rights began in 1981 when he featured at the fourth Amnesty International gala, The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball. He was part of Band Aid, performed at Live 8, featured with Peter Gabriel and Bruce Springsteen on a six-week Human Rights Now! Tour and plays an annual benefit concert at Carnegie Hall with Billy Joel, Elton John, James Taylor and more.

He has called for the immediate decriminalisation of drug possession and wrote an open letter to then-Prime Minister about the subject. He has campaigned for environmental issues, including the preservation of rainforests, and helped raise money following Hurricane Sandy, which generated US $23 million. Sting has reported decided that his children will not inherit his £180 million fortune because he believes it would be an albatross around their necks.

He re-opened the Parisian venue, The Bataclan, which had been the scene of a terrorist atrocity, which killed 90 people. He played an emotional concert and told fans: “We’ve got two important things to do tonight . . . First, to remember and honour those who lost their lives in the attacks a year ago. And then to celebrate the life and the music of this historic venue.”