Making Waves, Taking Bows

Teddy Tahu Rhodes is unsteady on his feet. Centre stage, the tall body waves a little from side to side. Irish singer Tommy Fleming is flat out in his room. Rumour has it, and I’m not sure if it’s true, that Elaine Paige is unwell. The 870-seat Aurora Theatre is completely full, extra chairs are in the aisles. If there was an emergency there would be chaos. From somewhere offstage there is a loud echoing crash. The singer ignores the competition and leans slightly to one side to hold his balance. He ends “Some Enchanted Evening”, and the audience response is enthusiastic. The Radiance of the Seas is pushing through the seas somewhere between Sydney and New Caledonia. It’s about where I killed Gough Whitlam. That loud bang of a wave striking the ship has made me slightly uncomfortable.

Somewhere in the 1990s I wrote a short comic novel, Finisterre (Amazon Kindle). The usual thing: Melbourne in 1956 with a serial killer, an establishment family in a grand house, and incestuous lovers. I took an old ship, which I renamed The Liberation of Australia, and loaded it with artists and politicians (hence the presence of Mr Whitlam) and sent them off on a cultural voyage to Europe, via the Panama Canal. Before they got as far as Nouméa I ran it into a coral reef and drowned the lot. It was very satisfying to write. I even bumped off a young man named Ellis, who was impaled by a baby’s perambulator which came careering down the main staircase of the listing ship—Eisenstein’s influence. Now, I’m on the Bravo Cruise of the Performing Arts, and the ship is loaded with some of Australia’s leading classical and musical theatre performers. The Radiance of the Seas is part of the Royal Caribbean fleet but the Bravo Cruise is a charter by an Australian company. It’s a really good idea.

I wasn’t a cruise sort of person until the day last February when, walking home from the video shop, I saw a travel agent’s poster for the Bravo Cruise headlined by Elaine Paige. In about five seconds I became a cruise sort of person, and spent the following nine months dreaming over the illustrated brochure fixed to the side of the fridge.

Friday, the night before sailing day, is spent at a hotel in The Rocks. About 6.30 p.m., still daylight, a group of noisy young men are walking along the sea end of George Street. Suddenly, screeching like querulous gulls, the group breaks apart. Pedestrians scatter as one of the boys spins about urinating in wide and high circles. In Mayor Clover Moore’s Sydney, and just opposite the Museum of Contemporary Art, I’m not sure if it’s funded public art or self-funded drunkenness. I escape along Nurse’s Walk. As it gets dark an open-air food market sets up in Argyle Cut. Some of the shops in the area are taking part in an arty festival and staging performances in their front windows. In one a young woman shakes bits of her anatomy at passers by, in another a girl seems to be crying, while a third window holds a robed older woman who may be weaving spells. Wandering on, my path is obstructed, in a chanced-upon laneway, by a monstrously huge white rabbit which glows opaquely like a Chinese paper lantern.

Next morning it’s a short walk to join the ship. I have never been on a cruise ship before. Outside all white and impressive, the interior is a floating Chadstone shopping centre where the food stalls are free, the alcohol wildly overpriced, and your room is cleaned and tidied several times a day. We passengers are all you have ever read about. Predominately elderly, many of us are hefty of size, and all seem very, very hungry. But its not a David Williamson vision of purgatory, it’s a good-natured Australian version of the “Rubens with jokes” world of Beryl Cook. Imagine Big Ted (that’s what the performers call Teddy Tahu Rhodes) in the swimming pool. All about are voluptuous older women on sun lounges, or lurking behind the shrubberies, furtively, and not so furtively, raising cameras and tablets in admiration. A scene from the last act of The Baby Boomers Show: paunches and haunches and flesh by the mile; walking sticks, wheelchairs and motorised things; and still a glint in the eyes.

Around our necks are lanyards to hang the plastic cards which are used to open cabin doors, make purchases on the cashless ship, and gain admittance to the evening performances. Snobbery afloat: a white lanyard with the word ARTIST loudly printed. The main performers are affable and willing to mingle but some of the young assistants and musicians are slim and aloof, except when pushing forward for free food: performing arts degrees with beach bags. The most bizarre sight all week, against solid competition, is a hipster on a sun lounge. The reclining figure of a young man with a black porkpie hat, shorts, alabaster flesh with sparse orphan hairs peppered across the bits of flesh that show between shorts and shoes and on skinny arms, short-sleeved decorative shirt, carefully farmed stubble, and petulant expression. I think he’s missing Fitzroy.

The cruise lasts seven nights. On the ship there are about 2000 passengers and performers. Every evening there are two one-hour performances of the Headliner Showtime programs. The passengers are divided between early and late shows. Early dinner, late show and vice versa. The dining room holds about a thousand people per sitting. The service is fast, efficient and friendly. Two waiters look after just four tables. Some people prefer to eat at the more casual buffet elsewhere.

On the first night at sea we go into the theatre not quite knowing what to expect. After some talk the curtain goes up and we are facing the Metropolitan Orchestra. I’m not the only person who gasps in pleasure at the sight. Standing ovation for David Hobson, Marina Prior and conductor Guy Noble. This marvellous orchestra backs the performers each night of the cruise. And as will happen every night, more than one patron will drift off to sleep.

In the main restaurant there is an unexpected performance by the Three Waiters—a comedy musical routine. We are on the second level. A woman from a nearby table picks up a hunk of meat from her plate and wanders over to stand at the top of the stairs looking down watching the show. An occasional bite and she nonchalantly chews—another woman seeing her gives an illustration of what the phrase “her jaw dropped” really means.

The Centrum is a deep well inside the ship where the main lobby is located. On the lowest deck is a bar and performing space. Balconies on each level allow passengers to look down on the activities. There are glass lifts giving views outwards of the sea and inwards into the area. The space houses some cheerful cruise-boat entertainment. One night the ship’s entertainers are dressed as the Village People—more or less. At the conclusion there is a happy conga line which goes upstairs and downstairs and comes to an end where the ship’s photographer has set up. Dancers have their photos taken with the cast—they can buy souvenir prints from the ship’s photographic shop.

The Duelling Pianos are playing in the Schooner Bar. They are singing “Danny Boy” as a waiter wanders through the audience with the plaintive cry of the cruise ship: “Wine, wine: two for one.”

Teddy Tahu Rhodes can move his pectoral muscles independently. David Hobson tells us this. Later, more confidentially, a clutter of matinee ladies recount his performance in The King and I, and giggle about the flabby bits—they have experience of these things.

“Boola, boola,” says the Kanak man selling food on the Isle of Pines as we wander back to the ship’s tender waiting at the jetty. Wikipedia suggests it is a Yale University fight song. He and a friend are cooking and selling from a makeshift stand on the foreshore. Their eatery offers a skewer of chicken or a small grilled fish, coconut rice, fried cassava and grated green pawpaw for A$10. They sell out quickly, and we are the fourth cruise ship that week. I suggest he has a “grand business”—“Non monsieur, petit business”—his hands illustrate the “petit” size.

Tommy Fleming, when he finally recovers from his seasickness (it wasn’t very rough), wanders around the ship without being recognised. His midweek performance instantly wins over the audience. On the Radiance of the Seas, aged almost forty-four, a star is born.

Interviewed on the ship’s closed-circuit television program, Marina Prior refers to her role in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Molière by Tartuffe—if you saw it, that makes a lot of sense.

Another morning on the ship television David Hobson talks of taking time off to compose and write. As a student he was trying to sell his rock opera of Macbeth when he was discovered as a singer. He’s very impressed with the on-board billiard tables. We all are. It’s an extraordinary sight as the bases twist and turn and the green tops remain steady.

It must be the sea air. On boat deck five an amply proportioned lady and gentleman are taking possession of two empty sun lounges. As wife lowers herself down there is a very loud sound and involuntary laughter from both her and husband, and two passengers walking nearby. The moment is a rude and cheeky Donald McGill seaside postcard come alive.

The cruise audience had an affectionate appreciation of Teddy, Marina, David and Guy. They are the people who actually go to plays and concerts. They are a mature-age, intelligent audience and the ABC has long been an important part of their lives. Here is an illustration of the stupidity of the Liberal-National Coalition, which has never developed a cultural policy to take on the Left domination of the arts and has allowed the ABC to turn into an extremist Left propaganda voice. These people have grown older with Auntie and haven’t noticed what a vicious old crone she has turned into.

Nouméa is grottier than ever. Poorly maintained pavements, dirty. A vote on independence from France is to be held before the end of 2018. People are friendly and helpful. It’s familiarly French. After an ATM gives up a 5000-franc note (about A$60) I innocently go into the bank to ask for some smaller notes. Teller One asks Teller Two if this can be done. Oui, with blue, white and red tape. I am asked to produce my passport. My date of birth and passport number are recorded. I’m asked for the name of the ship, and cabin number. Before the money is handed over an A4 receipt is printed in duplicate. After signing a copy I receive the other with my change. Lunch at Chez Toto is good.

The main bars on the ship are open and inviting. Lots of polished wood and comfortable big armchairs. With pianos or stages they host the smaller performances. Unfortunately on a cruise like this we all share similar tastes in music so that we all want to see the shows at the same time and very quickly the spaces are overcrowded and uncomfortable. The quietest place on the voyage seems to have been the casino, with the croupiers and barmen standing idly about. The shops however are always busy and on Black Friday there is a wild woman crush to buy cheap trinkets.

The charter entertainment sits atop the normal cruise boat activities. The ship has a Cruise Director, Amy Frickert. After each evening performance she pops up brightly with a spiel on the following day’s events: Bingo, bingo, bingo!, trivia competitions, Botox treatments and samba cooking demonstration (no idea, and I don’t want to know). Each night the mini performance of breathless announcements ends with: “I’m Amy, and you’re awesome.”

Colin Lane is a comic, previously part of Lano and Woodley. The solo routine starts with some unfunny audience bullying. It’s painful to watch. David Hobson joins him on stage. The act changes direction and comes alive. Hobson has a natural warmth which connects with audiences. They chat and both sing and it’s very funny. It could be a career-changing relationship for both.

One happy chat night in the Cascades restaurant, classical pianist Simon Tedeschi plays between main course and dessert. The waiters’ service stops, conversations pause—self-indulgence (the pianist’s) interrupts indulgence (the audience’s).

To get a preferred seat at the Headliner shows it’s necessary to be at the theatre when the doors open about an hour or forty-five minutes before the performance. Then sit and wait. Conversations spring up easily. Before show begins there is usually a warm blanket of noise.

Jonathon Welch, of the Choir of Hard Knocks, is a shipboard favourite. When he holds a meeting to put together a passengers’ Bravo Choir the doors are closed when the first hundred singers arrive—for many this was to have been the highlight of their week. When the chosen ones come on stage one night they look great, but it is Welch who holds centre stage. They do nice hand-waving things and provide backing for his singing. The unhappy ones who missed out form their own choir and give a daytime performance in one of the smaller venues. Originally the Rogue Choir or the Renegade Choir, they tactfully adopt the duller name of the Popup Choir. More democratic than their rivals, the members get a chance to sing. The excluded ones, “they shut the doors and we were sad … and grumpy”, have adopted “The Serenity Prayer” for their theme song: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”. Maybe for next year the organisers should bring back Mrs Rebel Choir Leader.

British musical theatre superstar Elaine Paige appears after a sell-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall in October. For months I’ve been staring at her publicity photo in the cruise advertising. Standing, with arms outstretched towards the viewer, her face is smiling and unlined. A low-cut dress clings wallpaper-tight to her body before ending with a wide spreading line at the floor. Gifted with an extraordinary hourglass figure, she looks like a free-standing mermaid. Once I owned a record of Mae West singing pop songs. In those primitive days you could see how the svelte figure had been cut by the photographer from a much fuller mould. The onstage diva clad in a tightly fitting sequin-covered gown has an unlined face, but the hourglass figure has gone, replaced by a miniature Susan Boyle. The mermaid is disguised as an embonpoint matron.

We get the familiar songs from all her shows—though without costume changes or Piaf’s black wig. As she heads into “Memories”, from Cats, “Another night is over / Another day is dawning”, the older man beside me begins a conversation with his companion. Paige was the original Eva Peron in Evita and performs “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”—though the best rendition arguably remains that of the earlier studio recording by Julie Covington.

The hour performance is a life story with famous songs. Speaking or singing, every word is crystal clear. The humour is self-deprecating, the performance flows from a turned-on tap. Two one-hour shows are our lot and that’s all we get. There is a special meet-the-stars event—held without Miss Paige. The other performers appear around the ship and are quite happy to talk with their fans. Not Miss Paige.

The daytime performance of Forbidden Broadway we see is an Australian-cast edition of the famous New York institution which satirises musical theatre productions and performers. Funny in parts, it is often hard to hear the words clearly and sometimes a struggle to recall who the intended victims of the satire were. A similar production gently making fun of the performing egos aboard would have been much more enjoyable.

Several of the original advertised artists have been cancelled and replacements brought in. One of them is a vaudeville routine called The Kermonds. I think it sounds an odd substitution. I’m wrong. They were a real pleasure. Father, son and grandson Kermond tapped, talked and sang. Stories of the old Tivoli, modern routine from grandson.

Every night is special, the final night concert is brilliant. Back come all the Headliner performers—except Miss Paige. In just over an hour we hear David Hobson, Marina Prior, Colin Lane, Guy Noble, Cheryl Barker, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Jonathon Welch, Simon Tedeschi, Michael Falzon, Jane Cho, Tommy Fleming, the Seven Sopranos, the Forbidden Broadway cast, and the Metropolitan Orchestra. That night the waves were being made inside the ship. Amongst the standout performances Hobson and Cheryl Barker sing a duet from La Bohème. The two stars of Baz Luhrmann’s 1990 Opera Australia production haven’t sung it together for twenty years. Cue standing ovation—another one. It’s a night to be on your feet. Though for a moment I have murder in mind. A friend of the performers sitting nearby keeps up a steady flow of talk—though naturally she is amongst the first to applaud, her hands raised high before her, advertising her good taste and enthusiasm. Also somewhere close behind me is a loud “Bravo”-for-everything screamer who wouldn’t be missed overboard.

The week has been politics-free but a final ditty by Guy Noble bring us up to date, supposedly, on what we had been missing. It lambasts Jacqui Lambie and burqas and concludes with Gough Whitlam entering Heaven and finding Sir John Kerr looking up from Hell. I think he got that the wrong way around, like Marina Prior.

Finally there is some speechmaking. Jonathon Welch has us applaud, loudly, the ship’s crew. They aren’t there and don’t hear us. It’s a nice warm moment, for us, and illustrates Andrew Bolt’s mantra of the Green-Left “seeming rather than doing”. The crew are underpaid. They work seven-day weeks for many months at a time. Most of us are on holidays while the others are being well paid for their work on board. The crew don’t get holidays. When their contracts end they are unemployed. Tomorrow the last passenger will leave the ship at 9 a.m., and by 11 a.m. the first new passengers will be coming on board. Wages which would be unacceptable in Australia allow us to have pampered holidays. Guy Noble enjoys the crispy American bacon served on board, he tells us. The cooks and cleaners working in the kitchens below all day, every day, would be delighted to hear it.

As we disembarked the best line of the week came from an immigration officer: “Passports aren’t needed. You’re home again.”