Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 90 days

As Queen Mary 2 heads back to her homeport of Southampton after an Eastbound Transatlantic Crossing and Queen Victoria enjoys her second Baltic Voyage of the season, I am delighted to bring you more news about Queen Elizabeth, with less than three months before she enters service. Yes I’m excited to share the latest details of our new Queen’s original concept in theatrical entertainment at sea, with the newly formed Queen Elizabeth Theatre Company.

 

 

You’ll have seen some of the latest pictures of the stunning Royal Court Theatre on Queen Elizabeth, so it’s now time to announce the brand new repertoire of shows that will be premiered there, by the Company’s 29 singers, dancers, actors and musicians.

 

 

The new lineup will include the hit, A Slice of Saturday Night, which is a popular nostalgic pastiche of 1960s music, which has been staged in London and toured extensively throughout the UK and US.

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Adapted especially for the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Company by its original writers, the Heather Brothers, A Slice of Saturday Night will feature all the Theatre Company members, in what will be the largest production show Cunard has ever staged.

The Queen Elizabeth Theatre Company will also present a variety of musical productions and abridged versions of popular plays such as a Neil Simon triple bill and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The Neil Simon show will feature three scenes; one each from some of the playwright’s best-loved shows; Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Plaza Suite and The Odd Couple. Each will be linked by their setting: an apartment or hotel suite.

 

At the conclusion of each show, the audience will be given the opportunity for an informal question and answer session with the actors.

The Piccadilly Line, will feature the talents of the entire Theatre Company, exploring the spoken word, song and prose as characters get on and off a train journey on the world’s oldest underground rail system. The action will be set in the shell of a London tube train carriage.

Hotel Royale will be a musical production featuring 16 singers and dancers, who whimsically bring to life the story of a hotel which is past its prime. Once the playground of the rich and famous, it is now home to some quirky staff and unusual guests.

 

 

Sing will be a lively production based on the popularity of Singers in Concert, performed on Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria. It will feature 21 musicians and four singers on stage, creating a dynamic, audience-pleasing atmosphere in the Royal Court Theatre from the very first note. The show’s influences are drawn from contemporary musical theatre, pop and classic songs which will be very familiar to the audience.

La Danza will be a cutting edge dance production show casing the virtuoso talents of our dance ensemble. Following in the footsteps of two hugely successful shows currently running on Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria, Apassionata and Dance Passion, La Danza will delight guests who enjoy cutting edge choreography performed by our exceptionally talented performers. 

Queen Elizabeth’s guests will also be able to take part in a specially written panel quiz show which will offer an afternoon of friendly banter. Satire quiz shows such as Have I Got News for You? and QI are very popular and the Theatre Company will have its own take on topical news and entertainment stories.

Peter Shanks, Cunard’s President and Managing Director, said: “The entertainment on Queen Elizabeth is the most extensive ever seen on a Cunard liner, mixing tradition with satire. The Royal Court Theatre is as good as any London West End or Broadway Theatre, and we have created our own Theatre Company to really bring it to life. From the best of Broadway to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, we offer something for everybody”.

I had a chance to catch up with him recently on Queen Victoria in the first of two Video Blogs.

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Belinda King who heads Belinda King Creative Productions, adds: “We are thrilled and honoured to be able to continue our successful partnership with Cunard in providing the production shows for this stunning new ship. With the creation of the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Company we look forward to delighting Cunarders old and new with a wonderfully entertaining selection of shows, now including original theatre productions as well as established stage favourites. Once more Cunard is raising the standard in on board entertainment and we are proud to be working alongside them!”

Queen Elizabeth continues the tradition of presenting Cunard’s Royal Nights, but with the debut of some very special evenings.

 

 

New evenings will include The Cunard Ball, The Starlight Ball and the Elizabethan Ball. There’ll also be London Swings which will featured on the same evening as Slice of Saturday Night, with its inspirations taken from flower power and popular British 60s’ icons such as Twiggy, Mary Quant, and Carnaby Street.

In addition, Queen Elizabeth will offer Cunard’s award-winning Insights enrichment programme which introduces guests to stimulating experts and accomplished academics. Through a series of lectures, Q&As, social gatherings and workshops, guests will be able to connect with personalities who have achieved distinction in areas including history, world affairs, science, arts and literature.

New for Queen Elizabeth will be the introduction of Professional Insights, a series of expert workshops on diverse subjects including antiques and auctions, sculpture, movie reviews, performance poetry, and even weather forecasting.

I chatted to Cunard’s Director of Entertainment, Martin Lilly about the exciting new concepts on Queen Elizabeth in the second of our Video Blogs:

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I hope you’re as excited to see all this new entertainment as I am to be a part of it; it’s certainly going to ground breaking and dynamic. I’m going to try and get to the rehearsal studios in Northampton while I am at home, but in the meantime, I’ll be back on Thursday with a special Blog featuring Cunard’s White Star Academy busy at work with new crew members who are joining our expanding fleet. Cheers for now, Alastair.

 

Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 271 days

 

It was lovely to see Queen Victoria in New York’s Manhattan, as I arrived to join the ship on a very cold but sunny Tuesday Morning. In fact it was so cold; there was ice in the harbour!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was great to meet many readers of this Blog, as well as so many familiar faces amongst our guests who were either joining Queen Victoria on that day, or had joined in Southampton. After a brief hand-over with Amanda Reid, she left that evening on a flight to Lisbon to join Queen Mary 2.

 

Thank you for the amazing feedback from the first Queen Elizabeth Float Out video. I am pleased you enjoyed it and am delighted to enclose the video from the second part of the day, along with some great photos, but first here’s Cunard’s history, for the week 15 to 21 January:

 

15 January 1972

QE2 makes her maiden call at Norfolk, Virginia, USA

 

15 January 2007

Queen Victoria floats out of her dry dock

 

16 January 2002

The first steel is cut to mark the formal start of construction of Queen Mary 2

 

20 January 1950

Caronia crosses the equator for the first time travelling south to Brazil

 

21 January 2008

Queen Victoria makes her maiden transit of the Panama Canal

 

 

Looking at our history, it’s incredible to think that less than three years after Queen Victoria was floated out of her dry dock for the first time, we were celebrating her sister, Queen Elizabeth, also floating out.

 

After the coins were welded to the ship’s bulkhead, our Madrina, VIP’s, officials and guests moved to the dock side for the next stage of the ceremony. After speeches from the Shipyard Director, Paolo Capobianco, and Cunard’s President and Managing Director, Peter Shanks, the Fincantieri Chaplain, Padre Gildo, was invited to bless the ship for the next stage of her construction.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

Our Madrina, Dennie Farmer, was then given a special small axe to cut the wire, releasing the bottle of Prosecco.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bottle then smashed against Queen Elizabeth’s hull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the signal for one of the shipyard’s staff to open the valves on the massive dry dock gates to let the water in, so that Queen Elizabeth could float for the very first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was quite moving realising the significance of the event, when the water came rushing in to the dock towards Queen Elizabeth’s hull.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is the video which captures the event perfectly:

 

 

 

 

 

The whole process takes some time, so we were grateful to receive these pictures of the latter stages of the filling of the dry dock with this first picture showing the aft section;

 

 

 

 

This is a fabulous shot of the bulbous bow in an almost full dock:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ll notice there is still a lot of paintwork to be completed on Queen Elizabeth’s hull which will be taking place soon. She will also go in to a dry dock one more time, after her first set of sea trials which are expected to be in about 18 weeks time. During that dry dock Queen Elizabeth’s hull will be completely repainted and treated ready for delivery a few months later.

 

We still have more videos from the day including some special interviews and we’ll post them over the next week or two. In the meantime I’d like to thank our cameraman Andrew for this stunning footage, as well as Simona and everyone at the Fincantieri shipyard for all their help and patience during the filming.

 

Also coming up is some news of the World Voyages from Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria. I’ll be back on Monday with the first of the interviews filmed at the Float Out Ceremony. Cheers for now, Alastair

 

 

Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 323 days

 

 

As Queen Mary 2 arrives in the Caribbean for her winter season, and Queen Victoria returns from her Mediterranean Voyage before heading off to the Canaries, Queen Elizabeth is literally growing by the day. In this Blog I’ve got the latest video, shot just last week in the Monfalcone shipyard.

  

 

During my trip to see Queen Elizabeth we managed to cover a lot in one day. We have filmed three clips especially for this Blog. Here’s a picture Martin Lilly (Cunard’s Director of Entertainment) took of me being filmed by our cameraman, Andrew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ll probably notice the rather interesting footwear I am wearing. They are actually safety shoes which everyone has to wear, as they have steel toe caps to give protection whilst walking around the yard. Mind you, you can always rely on the Italians to make safety shoes that look relatively stylish – even if they don’t match the suit!

 

Behind me you can make out one of the last few blocks, that has yet to be added to the ship and the yellow machinery behind me is an incredible piece of equipment capable of lifting 120 ton blocks.

 

So here at last is the first of those three video clips:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with a special guest Blog from Maureen Ryan, after her fascinating reunion a few weeks ago. On Thursday I’ll have another regular weekly Blog with the first interior pictures of our new Queen along with the second video. As I mentioned before I am very grateful to Simona and Antonio in the yard for all their assistance on that day, as well as Andrew and Martin, for their great pictures and video. Cheers, Alastair