MS QUEEN VICTORIA: THE ON BOARD ENTERTAINMENT

On Sunday last, small hours after that day’s episode had dropped, my good lady wife and I were sitting at the breakfast table, incidentally, the same one we use for all other meals, except we were just about to eat breakfast, when my wife asked me if I can count.

I don’t have too many strong points but, even if I do say so myself, anything of a mathematical nature is one of them. I thought about this for a moment. Please don’t tell me she had counted the blueberries in our bowls. There’s always something new to catch you out in married life. I couldn’t detect a trick in the question, the fruit appeared relatively even for each of us, so I asked why.

“Well,” she said. That wasn’t a good sign, it was serious, any time she starts a reply with well… only serves to give it an exaggerated gravitas. It was like she had just been to the Celebrations tub and realised there was one missing. Okay, so what if I did leave the wrapper in there, she would have spotted it in the bin in any case. “You mentioned in your blog this morning that you had spent a total of 88 days at sea in your life.”

“I did.” That was irrefutable, the evidence is in writing. “And your point is? Is it wrong?”

Do you chaps reading this ever wish you could suck words back into your mouth before they see the light of day? Stupid question, of course it was wrong. “Of course it is. It is 111 days.” She then showed the court the evidence, whilst touching her fingers as she added up the total to emphasise the matter.

It goes without saying, she was right. I have no idea how that happened. How on earth do you lose 23 days.

Then she struck like a snake. “There you go, you must have enjoyed it, the time went much quicker than you thought.”

I couldn’t answer that, so I am sorry for misleading you. I don’t expect it will affect your life one iota.

Now I am in the dock, I have to confess to another crime. The first law of writing is that you check your facts, and when you have done this, you check them again. I have failed miserably. I informed you last week that the canteen style restaurant is called the Veranda, it’s not, it’s called the Lido.

Easy mistake to make. Never mind!

Robert aboard Cunard's MS Queen Victoria

I thought we might take a look at the entertainment on offer in our floating hotel or, as one reader pointed out, Ocean View Residential Home for the Elderly, sometimes the two are interchangeable, it’s hard to notice.

Most of the performances took place in the Royal Court Theatre. It was a grand space, spread over three decks and, on the whole, the acts were pretty good. One or two didn’t quite cut the mustard but we endured, others didn’t and left the auditorium.

Each show was less than an hour long so I couldn’t really think why guests would get up and leave halfway through, even if they didn’t like it. What a shenanigan it was, these people were always in the middle of a row and would make their way to the stairs, making everyone else get up to let them pass.

Now get this, they didn’t seem to care that they might be spoiling other people’s evening. Then, five minutes later their neighbours would get up and do exactly the same. Personally, I think it is very poor etiquette and demonstrates a lack of breeding. What did they intend to do with the few minutes they got back, they were going to be cruising for 35 days, and they say it is the youngsters who have short concentration spans.

Mind you, looking at and talking to some of the other passengers, maybe time was of the essence, and they assumed they were on borrowed time, and each part of each hour was critical. We did, however, lose a number on route, so perhaps they were justified in their thinking.

As I said, one or two of the acts really were first class. Others were not as good, so they won’t get a mention. I must report that we never got up and left part of the way through, even for the soul singer, who was less pleasing to the ear than a couple of cats going at each other outside our house in the wee small hours.

We could not have been more royally entertained than we were with the first show. An all girl singing group from Ireland, Iris, got us off to a cracking start. Toes, even mine, were soon tapping along to renditions of hits from Dolly, Tammy and Emmylou among others.

What is more, they were genuinely lovely human beings too, we bumped into them in the lift when they were headed to the gym, they said they were having a whale of a time.

Another top-class act was a fellow named Kenny Martin. What a joy his show was. From his name alone, I pictured a band led by Kenny Ball. As it happens, I wasn’t too far off the mark with that one, he filled the Royal Court with some splendid interpretations of works by the aforementioned Mr Ball and his Jazzmen as well as Acker Bilk and other well known jazz musicians.

Sorry I can’t elaborate but jazz is not my strong point. To be honest, most things of a musical or artistic bent fall outside my field of expertise. When it comes to it, I am a shambling amateur, I know what I like and what I don’t, a bit like wine really. If there are subtle differences I should be looking for in taste, they are sorely lost on me.

What about ventriloquists? What about them I hear you say? Well, when was the last time you saw one in action? Given that there are only five left in the entire country, according to our man, Jimmy Turpin, it is quite unlikely that you will have come across one recently. Shall we say that his act was niche. It was full of up-to-date material, albeit delivered in a 1970s style, including jokes about Keir Starmer and Viagra, not that there is a link, or so we thought, but two of his puppets were quite rude.

One, a female, clearly worked her magic on the other one, hence the link to Viagra. Apart from the entire audience booing when the then PM’s name was mentioned, one of the puppets observed that Starmer must have an ongoing supply of the drug, he seemed to be permanently stiff, wooden, and should really loosen up a bit. I think it suited a crowd of Boomers, probably not to be repeated for Gen Zees. No fear of stumbling across such like on our care home at sea.

For all the professional entertainment laid on for us, it is no match for that provided by fellow passengers. Shall we say that occasionally you witness actions or words that are beyond fathomable.

One such occasion at the aforementioned ventriloquist’s show. Even though it was amusing in a 1970s sort of throwback way, nothing prepared us for the fact that a lady in the audience had taken her own ventriloquist doll into the auditorium.

She was sitting in the front row. We had met this lady earlier during the cruise and, on the whole, she seemed fairly normal, albeit with a penchant for listing out every other blind person she had ever met. Mercifully, the list didn’t seem inexhaustive.

Anyway, she caught Mr Turpin’s attention who, fortunately for the unsighted in the auditorium, gave us all a running commentary of the wannabe in front of him. I am reasonably sure she wasn’t a plant, you could sense Jimmy had been caught off guard. He dealt with it quite well, not belittling the poor lady and referring to the imitation dummy in the audience.

When we arrived back at our cell, we had to go over the story all over again. To tell the truth it kept us amused for days.

“I mean,” I said. “Who on earth takes a dummy on holiday with them.

No answer.

Okay, I get it, none taken!

The resident QV ensemble was The Royal Court Players and very good they were too. I accept that I am no expert, but I am always blown away by how good some of these lesser-known acts are. Perhaps one or two of them will go on to become household names, perhaps they won’t, maybe it is only provincial theatres that await their future.

When I am being entertained by them, Jane said that the dancing was as good as anything you get on television and I can certainly vouch for the singing. The visual stuff to me is much like a sighted person staring at a brick wall and extoling its ability and rhythm.

One of the shows performed on the main stage was the outstanding story of how, on 11th September 2001, aeroplanes that were already in the air headed for US airports were diverted to the little-known Gander Airfield in Newfoundland, when the World Trade Centre was razed by that dreadful terrorist attack, eponymously known as 9/11.

What a story, brought to life by the ship’s own ensemble. It tells the tale of how a small community banded together to help the huge number of unexpected visitors who had come from away.

This thing isn’t just thrown together you know. Well, it is, this is nothing more than a coincidence. If you live in the King’s Lynn part of the country or, dare I say it, fancy a short break exploring everything that this undersold historic port has to offer, you can also take in a performance of the very same show, “Come from Away.”

It is performed by the brilliant King’s Lynn Players between 11th and 14th November. You can obtain tickets from the box office at the Alive Corn Exchange. I can personally vouch for the quality of this company. We were lucky enough to see them last year in “Titanic: The Musical.” It went down really well. Don’t miss out.

I know it sounds like a rather grand gesture to introduce local culture to us but, I am sorry to report, don’t make it the main entertainment on the main stage. We stayed in Aruba overnight to allow crew to hit the town and let their hair down. Clearly, this included the entertainment team as well.

Cunard, in its wisdom, booked a local dance troop. Well, where to start, do you remember going to your children’s primary school performances? It was like those except worse, excruciating was not a strong enough word.

Unlike many we stuck it out until the end. The ladies dancing for our enjoyment, not for mine it has to be said, were, how to be kind, a tad on the voluptuous side. Perhaps costume material was priced at a premium for there were more acres of flesh on display than anything else. Apparently, men were ogling and ever hopeful that an errant boob might pop out of one of its holders. Jane said that I wouldn’t have liked it even if I could see. Beefy Bosoms, tubby tummies and thunderous thighs, there was a lot there. It has to be the worst I have endured since those primary schooldays, at least we had a stake in the school performances.

I am not sure whether informative lectures fall into the entertainment category or not. We did enjoy some pretty good ones. I will touch on one that floated my boat this time.

First mention goes to Professor Mary Chamberlain, an expert in Caribbean history, who not only filled us in with what we might expect to learn at each of our destinations but also let us have a brief history of the island nations, much of which formed the basis of my wittering in earlier episodes.

A reminder here, you can visit the Blog page of the website to catch up on any you have missed or, for that matter, any you might like to read again.

The latter assumes that you have deleted the relevant blog from your Inbox, I suppose there is no accounting for taste, you are, in the main, grown-ups able to make your own decisions even if they are sometimes misguided.

Look for the items named for West Indian tropical paradises. I found myself being moved when she recounted the slave trade. How appropriate is that given the last week we have had. I thought the King did a pretty good job of batting the thorny issue away. I think he is so enlightened when compared to what has gone before.

Robert was very pleased to find Adnams Broadside being served

Just before I go, a word about the ales sold in the bars. I was overjoyed to learn that they sold Adnams Broadside. First time I had one was as we were steaming across the Atlantic and had reached slightly warmer climes. We sat outside, on the swimming pool deck, everyone was buzzing, we all knew it was cold and dark back home. I love a beer garden and this, without any doubt, is among the best beer gardens in the world.

I know at the beginning of last week’s blog I indicated that I might polish off life on board in two or three episodes. I am afraid I seriously underestimated this. Since revisiting my journal, I have discovered so many stories and anecdotes nearly forgotten, that I have been given a bit of a wake-up call. In the end the journal ran to nearly one hundred pages.

Next week we will feature more of the entertainment and guest speakers we were privileged enough to see. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten our dinner dates who carried on about the alien invasion of earth, due to take place when we were returning from the Caribbean. Tune in next time to see if some nuclear death ray sent us to the seabed.