Part 1: THEATRE AT SEA cruise on Cunard’s Queen Mary II - Transatlantic Crossing
Photo credit: Nick Wayne
Cunard’s Theatre at Sea transatlantic crossing from Southampton to New York is a special celebration of Musical Theatre, especially for those performers and productions that have won Oliviers (formerly SWET Awards) from The Society of London Theatres (SOLT). Now in its third edition (2022 and 2024 before) and wonderfully curated by former SOLT chief executive Julian Bird, it offers an insightful action-packed voyage that fills most of the six sea days of the crossing. A combination of insight lectures, interviews with the stars, workshops, quizzes, and splendid cabaret style shows, it has something for everyone who loves musicals on both sides of the Atlantic.
Indeed, the six days at sea remind you of the size of the world, only occasionally seeing another ship, with no land and the Captain poignantly announcing on the fourth day that the ship was passing a few hundred miles NORTH of where the RMS Titanic struck the iceberg in 1912 and sank to its final resting place! On board too, there is a virtual reality experience where you can wander around the first class and crew rooms on the Titanic and compare the quality of the décor to the Queen Mary II, now nearly twenty-five years old.
Julian’s long standing association with the Oliviers as the Awards producer means he can attract top talent to the ship to perform to an enthralled audience and provide insightful commentary to those less familiar to the technicalities of staging a show. This year’s programme was led by Liz Roberston who found fame as Eliza Dolittle in the first revival of My Fair Lady in 1979, and then married the librettist Alan Jay Lerner (his eighth wife) in 1981. She now, forty years after his death at 67, protects his legacy and his copyright with three of his children. Also on board are Shanay Holmes (recent star as Nancy in the Chichester and West End production of Oliver!), Linzi Hateley (best known as a Narrator of Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat), Frances Ruffelle (the original Eponine in Les Miserables), and Norman Bowman (recent star of Brigadoon at Regent Park). We report on these artistes in part 2 of the article (check back tomorrow, Besties!) The winner of ITV’s Mamma Mia: I Have a Dream, Tobias Turley; Jamie Safir, a regular jazz pianist at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho; and Hugh Maynard, the first black Sweeney Todd, complete the performance talent.
The multi-talented Ben Stock wonderfully teams up with the sartorially elegant pianist Tom Carradine in several shows including a wonderful tribute to old fashioned British Music Hall in their show Don’t Dilly Dally, which will tour UK later this year. Ben also leads the passenger choir of around 100 who perform on the Royal Court Stage on the last day, while David McMullan leads the dance workshops to perform a couple of routines.
Professor Richard Schoch delivered three wonderful insight lectures on Stephen Sondhiem, Shakespeare’s house in Stratford upon Avon, and The Theatrical Passions of Queen Victoria. Behind the scenes is explained by Graham Hookham on the role of Stage Management, Paul Kieve on illusions and magic, and Zoe Styles on hair and makeup including a demonstration of creating a facial injury with make-up.
The ‘Theatre at Sea’ programme includes well produced shows: A Little Bit of Lerner, The Best of British Oliviers, Life Upon a Wicked Stage, The Scot and the Showgirl, and The Oliviers in Concert to entertain a full house of 1,200 guests twice nightly. We report on these in part 3 of the article, landing on Sunday.
There is hardly time to fit in seeing every element of the programme, as well as all the eating on board, but we would have, like Oliver!, liked more! We did enjoy a glimpse behind the scenes of Stage Management in “How you put in and run a show” and a discussion led by Julian Bird about “The state of the industry” but there is so much more to putting on an Olivier-winning production! We would like to have heard from a Director, Choreographer, Designer, Orchestrator or even an Intimacy or Movement Coordinator about their work in creating a show. In addition, the Oliviers is not just about musicals, and we could have seen some winning play scenes or a discussion about writing or adapting for the stage. Cunard have, on some ships, staged Brief Encounter or had RADA graduates on board, so a play element would have been a good addition. The audiences clearly have a passion for live theatre, some had been on the previous two editions of the voyage and may have been interested in how show finances work for a theatre, a touring production, or a West End show. Dynamic pricing was questioned but when audiences understand that it requires 80% plus sales of the financial capacity of a run to recoup the capitalisation and with rising employment costs, they may understand why this method of pricing is becoming the norm and how it can be used to support cheaper seats to attract younger and more diverse audiences.
They rounded the whole programme off with a very well organised signing and selfie session in the Grand Lobby where guests had a chance to say a few words of thanks to each of the guest performers.
In addition to all that the crossing included two performances from Cunard’s own Royal Court Theatre Company repertoire of eight shows, Be My Guest and Let’s Dance. The eight dancers and four singers in the company were aged between 19 and 32 and are booked for 7 month contracts with an initial 8-12 week rehearsal period on land to learn the shows. Like pantomime, cruise ship entertainment is an underrated skill set for young performers starting out in their careers in the business, as well as cool way to “see the world”. On this voyage, we saw Nathan (Company Manager), singers Phoebe (who sang with Jason Donovan on board in Sydney), Andrew, Annabel, and her husband, Jack, and dancers Amelia, Sofia and her fiancée, Harry, Issy, Sean (a former GB Gymnast), Kieran and Sarah. The shows are very well produced and choreographed with effective use of the digital settings and plenty of glamorous costumes, and looked well drilled and precise, helped perhaps by a very calm six-day crossing!
In our view, the Cunard entertainment programmes are amongst the best quality on cruise ships, but Julian Bird’s team added another layer straight from the West End that made this cruise exceptional. Cunard have announced that Theatre at Sea will return on cruise M730 from 20-27 October 2027 and M833 from 25 October-1 November 2028. No details of artistes on board yet, and we think you need to know who they have secured before booking but we hope that Julian Bird and his team will be booked to secure another stellar line up that makes this such a special voyage.
For more info on ‘Theatre at Sea’ cruises, please click here.