Cruise Control

Is this the play which finally gives Australia’s most successful playwright a long run on both sides of the Atlantic?

It certainly has the credentials of becoming a red hot hit.

An Australian couple, two Jewish New Yorkers and a pair of stiff upper lip Poms board a cruise ship in London – retracing the journey of the Titanic. They are trapped on the same dining table for seven nights as their relationships hit icy waters or sink.

David Williamson was enjoying himself on opening night. Laughing at his own jokes and revelling in the crisp performances. The audience was having just as good a time.

Afterwards in the foyer John Bell reached up to give David Williamson a pat on the back and was overheard saying it was ‘very well directed’.

As well as being the playwright and director the family affair was  extended by the casting of David Williamson’s step-son Felix as the villain Richard Manton. He is a lounge lizard extraordinaire who cruises the ship looking for conquests while his hapless wife Fiona (Michelle Doake) weeps in her cabin. 

It was the best role in the play, portrayed with a razor sharpness that showed this was not a case of a job for my boy.

The other couples were just as delicious. Henri Szeps – more than slightly typecast as Jewish dentist Sol Wasserman - produced the belly laughs alongside his charismatic wife Sally played by Kate Fitzpatrick.

Peter Phelps as Darren Brodie showed off his impressive tattoos when he tore off the monkey suit on the way to the formal dinner which he attended in jeans. But any Barry Humphries like cliché about unsophisticated Aussies was deflated by his elegant wife Helen Dallimore (Imogen).

Perhaps the course of events might not always have been entirely believable and maybe there could have been a bit more character development and yes there were a few grizzles in the audience about the plastic crockery the Ensemble Theatre dished up. But overall this was the one brightest new plays David Williamson has penned in recent years.

David Spicer

Images: Henri Szeps and Kate Fitzpatrick & Peter Phelps, Michelle Doake, Helen Dallimore, Henri Szeps, Felix Williamson and Kate Fitzpatrick in Cruise Controll. Photographer: Clare Hawley.