Waves of Laughter: Cruising with the Comedy Store Players

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Wednesday 1st June 2022

Fancy a comedy-themed getaway? Then prepare for a treat. From 24th June to July 1st, Princess Cruises are launching their Comedy Stars themed cruise, from Southampton to several lovely Scandinavian cities (Copenhagen and Skagen in Denmark; Oslo and Kristiansand in Norway) and back again, with onboard entertainment from a stellar bill of comedy names.

Riding the seas will be: former Father Ted and current Taskmaster hero Ardal O'Hanlon; stand-up queen and recent EastEnders guest star Lucy Porter; the king of satirical voices, Rory Bremner; and the UK's foremost improv troupe. Yes, the Comedy Store Players are on board, bringing their interactive ad-libbed punchline party to the comedy-loving passengers; a sort of Whose Cruise Line is it Anyway?.

And the man who invariably has most fun on Players trips, one of the best-traveled and most incident-packed people in the business, is Andy Smart. We called the Smart phone to see if he'll be ship-shape.

This sounds like an excellent trip then Andy?

I mean, it's just a lovely way to make a living; go away for a week, do some shows, and you get to see lots of new faces as you travel around. I'd like to do more of them.

I've got some stuff that weekend so I'll be flying out to join the ship in Copenhagen, I think we're doing the show then it's Richard [Vranch]'s birthday, in Oslo. I'd already arranged to meet some friends there before I realised it was his birthday - so I'll buy him a drink on the ship.

Have you done many shows on ships before?

We've done quite a few over the years. The first one was back in about 2002. We did one from Southampton to Genoa, the second was down to Galicia - Santiago de Compostela - then Bermuda to the Azores, including Kitts and Nevis; Grenada. Big waves on that one. Incredible.

It does seem a good fit, your crew on a cruise. Do the audience suggestions often relate to the setting?

Yeah, they tend to be a bit more nautical. It's a perfect show for the cruise ships because each show is different, we could do two shows in a night and they'd be completely different shows.

I hear you're doing this straight after Glastonbury?

That's going to be interesting. We're doing the Friday and Saturday, in the theatre field; I've done every Glastonbury since 1985, I'm an old hand at it, so I'll be alright. I always get up on the Sunday morning, leave the festival about half 11, drive back, get a Sunday roast on the way and then go and do the [Comedy] Store on the Sunday night.

I assumed you'd be going straight from Glasto to Southampton, so it's good to hear you'll be showering in between.

Oh yes, they won't have to see my dirty knees. If I didn't have the Players [gig on Sunday night] I probably would do that. I did get caught in traffic one year, I had no time to have a shower so I literally turned up at the 'Store in what I'd been wearing at Glastonbury for, like, three days. Paul Merton was horrified, he wouldn't come near me, he went 'you do whiff a bit' - well, I had been in a field for three days, off my head.

I guess you've gigged in Scandinavia, where this cruise is heading - lovely audiences but very polite, I hear?

Well, they do laugh; they laugh at weird things. There's a fantastic theatre in Oslo where they do nothing but impro, and we've been lucky enough to play there, it's so well run. At the back of the stage there's a curtain, and through there every possible costume you could imagine.

In the middle of an impro session, they just go off and come back in a completely different costume, which Steve Steen did about 15 times when we played. It's got a lovely restaurant and bar, near the river. I wish we had one in London.

Are there many regular gigs on the water? The Tattershall Castle in London comes to mind...

There used to be a great one in Glasgow, the Renfrew Ferry gig. One of the old ferries, they tied it up on the dock and turned it into a nightclub. If you did Glasgow you'd either go on first at The Stand and last at the Renfrew, or the other way around. That was always good fun.

There's something really nice about shows on water...

The waves lapping at the sides. We did one in Singapore, we were on the top deck of the vessel and everyone else was on the grass in front of it, but they didn't have head-mics for us, so we all had to have handheld mics, which didn't work. It was on at about one o'clock in the morning, one of those ones that you go 'oh that's too much money to turn down,' then you do it and go, 'we should've turned this down.'

Thinking of comedy and the water, I remember the late, great Ian Cognito lived on a narrowboat; and would always get annoyed when I called it a barge.

He did for years, yeah, outside Bath. He'd say 'pick me up here,' he'd be stood on the hard shoulder and we'd have to pull over. And then when you dropped him off, he disappeared through the fence and down to his boat.

It does sound quite romantic...

Not so much in the winter! My daughter lived on one, whenever you put any sort of heating on, the condensation, the water came out of the woodwork.

Back to the luxury liners then, they're a good setting for comedy scripts too I suppose, lots of new people all together?

It's why The Love Boat went on for, like, 26 years on telly. It's the perfect format, because you could change the cast as the cruise ship changes its customers every week. Carry On Cruising is pretty good too.

Perhaps you should write one - you'll have a nice bit of free time on the ship?

Actually, when we did Bermuda to the Azores I was finishing my book [A Hitch in Time]. I had a week to finish it, so I would go off into this lounge at the front, right on the top deck, and just sit there with my computer and knock out 5,000 words every afternoon. The odd brandy, coffee, lovely. It was a perfect place to write.

Well there you go, particularly if these cruise shows turn into a regular thing...

I'll take my keyboard!