Even before Messenger, a giant bronze sculpture depicting a female actor, had been craned into place outside the Theatre Royal Plymouth, it was attracting a mixture of praise, anger and ribaldry.

Some agreed with those who had commissioned the seven-metre-high, 9.5-tonne piece that it was an exciting and bold statement about the creative life of the Devon city.

But there were others who said that it looked more like a skateboarder, a surfer, a sumo wrestler and a good few argued that the money – almost half a million pounds – could have been better spent.

Adrian Vinken, the chief executive of the theatre, was not surprised that the statue created by the Cornish artist Joseph Hillier, was dividing opinion and insisted that it was better to be talked about than ignored.

He said he believed the sculpture, which was dropped into place on Monday, could change what people thought of Plymouth as it gears up for next year’s 400th anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower’s journey from the south-west of England.

“A major piece of public art can transform the world’s perception of what a place is like,” he said. “It makes a statement about a city – it’s ambitious, it’s contemporary and it’s forward-looking.”

The theatre says the piece is the largest bronze sculpture created in the UK using the ancient process of lost-wax casting.

“In time, it may become one of those iconic statues that destinations become for ever associated with,” said Vinken. “The Angel of the North faced a tremendous amount of opposition when it was proposed, but is now an integral part of life in the north-east. We hope our new sculpture will become just that here in Plymouth.”

Messenger’s arrival was dramatic.

Thirty craftspeople had spent a year working on the statue under Hillier’s guidance at Castle Fine Arts foundry in mid Wales.

Its parts were moved to the naval base at Devonport in Plymouth for assembly, but the statue could not be transported to the city centre entirely by road as it was too big to fit under the bridges.

So the statue was placed on to a barge and as day broke on Monday, was floated across Plymouth Sound. It made landfall at Millbay docks, where it was lifted on to a lorry that drove Messenger at walking pace following a bridge-free route. The sculpture was greeted at the theatres by onlookers and flag-waving schoolchildren who chanted “Messenger, messenger.”

Lorry driver Andy Upton said it had been nerve-wracking as he negotiated bends and roundabouts, careful not to scratch either the sculpture or the trailer it was carried on. He declared the statue beautiful.

Not all agreed. Some are already calling it “Radcliffe’s revenge” after the moment Paula Radcliffe stopped for a toilet break during the London Marathon. Concerns were expressed that the sculpture could be a target for vandals or a magnet for thrill-seekers trying to climb it.

As the statue was moved across the city there were also those who wondered if the money could have been ploughed into fixing potholes or housing the homeless. The theatre says the statue is part of a £7.5m regeneration project and no city council funding has been spent on it.

Hillier said he felt it was important the sculpture was of a woman, to counter the many male statues that dominate in Plymouth and other cities – something the #MeToo movement has made all the more relevant.

“To represent a woman at this scale and in public space has turned out to be a more revolutionary proposition than I had first considered it … at a moment in our history when female actors have transformed the consensus in western society, about the position of women professionally and generally,” Hillier said.

Messenger is based on a pose by a female cast member, Nicola Kavanagh, in a rehearsal for Othello at the Plymouth theatre in 2014, as she was about to spring from a crouched position. Its title, Messenger, refers to the role of an actor in breathing life into the words of a writer.

The lost wax process, in which molten metal is poured into a mould made from a wax model, is one of the oldest forms of metal working, but the project also used 3D scans to capture the actor’s pose.

It will take four days to complete the installation of Messenger, and Kavanagh will officially unveil it on Friday.