Tom Stieghorst
There's no business like show business — even the travel business.
That point was driven home for me at the premiere of "The Greatest Showman" onboard the Queen Mary 2 in Brooklyn on Friday night.
The film, a project of 20th Century Fox that will debut in theaters on Dec. 20, is itself a story of show business. Its subject is the legendary P.T. Barnum, who founded America's best-known circus and was a promoter of shows.
Working in travel is pretty exciting. It's fun to tell people at holiday parties about your last trip to some far-flung destination, or the luxury of the newest cruise ship coming out. But Hollywood glamour puts everything else in the shade. Those rotating search lights illuminating the New York skyline gave the evening an excitement right from the start, as did the fleet of limousines dropping guests and stars at the door of the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
There were Hugh Jackman (who plays Barnum) and Zac Efron, looking as dapper as it gets in their suits and ties. There was Rebecca Ferguson (who plays soprano Jenny Lind) being interviewed dressed head to toe in red.
There was Zendaya — only entertainers seriously use just one name — in a dress that only a few people outside Hollywood could pull off.
Invited by Cunard to a reception for the premiere (although not to see the film itself), I did my best not to be impressed. But show business knows how to get around my defenses, and it was, at the end of the night, an exciting thing to be a part of.
I sometimes wonder at the effort cruise companies put into the theaters and shows onboard. It is a truism that nobody picks a cruise for the entertainment. And some shows just don't rise above mediocre.
But shows and entertainers do lend some glamour to cruises -- an extra dimension that makes buying that expensive ticket just a little easier to swallow. It gives us something to do in the evenings after a big meal, an occasion to dress up for and a feeling that we've escaped our ordinary life at home not only by traveling but by submitting to the spectacle of song, dance and stage.
It's a trick that P.T. Barnum knew something about.