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