Entertainment Postscript

I forgot to mention that the best comic we had on the cruise was Tom O'Connor who really was quite good. Janet Googled how old he was and we were surprised to learn that he's only 75. He looked worn out and must be worried about his health because he'd brought what we assumed was a nurse with him.

Fred Olsen finish their cruises with a very enjoyable Crew Show and so some genius at P&O decided that they could do the same thing with a Passenger Show. Unfortunately, the essential difference is that crew will do what they are told and practice till they get it right and passengers won't. Also, with passengers, you are more likely to get someone whose performance makes his family cringe with embarrassment every Christmas and doesn't understand that “we look forward to this every year” is not necessarily praise. I wonder if P&O's HR Department now use the Passenger Show to grade their entertainment staff – get it right and you're fast tracked to Cruise Director, get it wrong and you're on your way back to Tesco's Southampton.

There was another Celine Dion impersonator in the main theatre so, on our last night, we settled down in Carmens to watch the Passenger Show. Centre stage, the most junior Entertainment Officer, caught like a rabbit in the spotlights, gripped the microphone rather too tightly. He announced that tonight he was presenting no less than nine different acts – all of them men. At that moment you just knew that things were not going to end well.

An octogenarian sang a love song for his wife to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary and understandably got thunderous applause. He took this as sign of encouragement and decided to sing another song, and then yet another. The leader of the resident band Kool Blue (no neither do I) tried desperately to find matching tunes whilst staring at the Entertainments Officer with an “I did warn you” look on his face. Learning from their mistake, the audience only gave the Elvis impersonator polite applause but there was no way he was now going leave without an encore. As he launched into another one of Elvis's hits the leader of Kool Blue just shrugged his shoulders and played the first tune again.

The first intentional attempt at comedy came from another elderly gentlemen. He told everyone he was going to give them a school lesson and then spent the next five minutes sorting out a flip chart and finding his pens, his speech and something to point with. Writing down the word DONKEY he asked the audience “what do you call a donkey with a wooden leg” - silence - “a WONKEY DONKEY”. He wrote WONKEY on the flip chart and, repeating his question, he insisted that the audience read out the words. Next came “What do you call a donkey with a wooden leg who is playing the piano” - silence - “a HONKEY TONKEY WONKEY DONKEY”. Writing down the new words he repeated the question and once again insisted that the audience read the flip chart aloud. And so on -

I must admit that as he filled up the first page of the flip chart I did find this mildly amusing but as he started on the third page I was beginning to contemplate the perfect murder. By the time he had finished I had decided that if I had strangled him on stage the whole of the audience would have been prepared to swear that they had seen nothing. By the time we got to act five the show had outrun the time allocated and the audience were starting to leave. The waiters, who weren't looking forward to their additional change-over duties early the next morning, were beginning to get restless. The accidental chink of empty glasses was rising to a crescendo.

The next “comedian” stood at a lectern and read out his jokes which he had transcribed to paper from the original parchment. As more people left, a song and piano man explained that, as there was no piano, he would have to manage with Kool Blue's electronic organ although he'd never played one before. This wasn't a surprise because he'd started his act grovelled about on the floor trying to find out what all the pedals did. By the final act the audience had reduced mainly to friends and family although a few brave souls or bloggers remained. This time it was a relatively young man who sang and played the guitar. It was an amazing noise. I can't say that I've never heard a sound like it but then again I have done several building projects inside secure mental hospitals.

The Entertainments Officer finally wound up the show with a look of relief tinged with sadness as he contemplated his new career at Tesco. Behind us, I heard a man give his opinion of the show to his wife. “Well er” he said, obviously considering his words carefully “It was better than the f***ing Juggler”

Dave