Sting says his play about the collapse of the Tyneside shipbuilding industry will resonate with Glaswegians when it opens in the city next summer.

The Last Ship is inspired by the musician's experiences growing up near the Wallsend shipyards in North Tyneside.

The play will open in Glasgow - a city with its own shipbuilding history - in June next year.

During a performance at the Fairfield Heritage Centre on Monday, Sting paid tribute to union activist Jimmy Reid, who fought the closure of the Clyde shipyards in the 1970s.

The musician described the collapse of the UK's shipbuilding industry as a "wound that has not healed".

"This is the first play I've had a part in writing and it's a personal story - even though it's not biographical - and I'm delighted it's coming to Glasgow," he said.

"It will resonate with people here, the feeling of pride that all the people who worked in the shipyards have about the ships they built.

"There's a resonance here that I'm really looking forward to experiencing.

"It's still a wound that has not healed. We used to make things in this country, we don't anymore. We're becoming an offshore tax haven - is that our future?"

Sting said his experience of creating the play, which debuted on Broadway in 2014, was like steering a ship.

"The theatre for me is such an amazing collaborative enterprise, there are so many moving parts - it's huge," he said.

"It's almost like a ship in a way and it has to be steered in the right direction."

The Last Ship, which stars Auf Wiedersehen Pet's Jimmy Nail, opens at the Theatre Royal on June 18.