After making a triumphant debut in London’s West End last year, Cruise has returned for a super-limited run this summer – sadly having to end on 4th September! For those of you yet to ‘cruise’ for the first time, the show, written and performed by Jack Holden as Michael who regales us with tales of his love affair with London, namely Soho, during the 80s. Packed with the best kind of frenetic energy, drama, comedy…emotion, daaahling, the play is a total masterclass in storytelling. That’s even before we mention the incredible soundtrack by John Patrick Elliot. The Olivier-nominated show is totally irresistible and will have you yearning for a night out on the scene. Speaking as someone who emigrated to Spain six years ago, it’s made us seriously consider if we have made the right decision!

For those of you who have seen Cruise, or enjoy self-sabotage with spoilers, read on as Loverboy speaks with writer and actor, Jack Holden, who had us truly gagged with his performance. He tells us about writing Cruise, his writing process and what’s coming next.

Jack, seriously congratulations! Cruise is incredible. What was the catalyst that made you put pen to paper and say, ‘I’m going to write a play and I’m going to write it right now’.
Thank you! The story for Cruise had been in my head for a few years. I knew I wanted to write it someday. One morning, in the midst of the first lockdown, I woke up with a vision of me on stage with the word ‘Cruise’ above me in red neon. I knew I needed to make this show so I dropped a line to John Patrick Elliott, with whom I’d collaborated before, to ask if he would like to create the music. He said yes, I started writing, and the rest is history…

Besides Jack and Michael, who were the easiest characters to write and who were the hardest?
Besides Jack and Michael, most of the other characters are fictional and they all arrived pretty easily to be honest. I knew I wanted a kaleidoscopic range of characters, so it was a wonderfully fun exercise of the imagination to create archetypal queer characters who were full of originality, idiosyncrasy, and a touch of crazy.

How in depth do you create their personas/backstories before writing their dialogue?
I don’t really do that at all – I start writing them, and their voice emerges, and then the character becomes fully realised. It’s all a bit backwards, but the tone of someone’s voice and the lexicon they use can tell you so much more about a person than, for example, the way they stand or dress.

Do you run through all your voices each night before going on stage?
I usually run through a few of them in my warm up. There are a lot of different accents, and a lot of the characters’ voices sit in different parts of my range, so it’s helpful for me to have a go at a few of them before doing them in front of an audience!

Each have very specific accents and physical mannerisms. Does this it make it harder or easier to switch between?
The accents and the physicality are essential! They make it clear for the audience, but they also provide important structure for me. The hardest scenes to perform are those where the characters are similar; when the characters are distinct, it’s a lot easier. Performing this show takes a huge amount of concentration, but by distinguishing the characters so clearly I also engage my muscle memory along the way.

You first performed Cruise in 2021 after peak-Covid. Have you tweaked the play at all between the original performance and the current one?
I’ve made a couple of small changes. There’s a short epilogue at the end of the show which comments on the action of the play from today’s perspective. That perspective has changed, even in the last year. So I needed to update that a little bit. Also, the set, sound, lighting and staging has all taken a big step up. Bigger theatre – bigger show!

What’s next for Cruise? Would turning it into a film with an ensemble cast interest you?
We’re working on the film version. But the aim is to keep it as close to the concentrates live experience as possible. By which I mean I – or another actor – playing all of the roles, as in the stage show. I think it’s part of the magic of Cruise. If we lose that, the trick is up!

You’re now working on The Isle. Are you able to tell us anything about it? Is it Queer? Is it for stage?
It’s for stage, yes! And it’s set in the 1990s. Roughly speaking, it’s about rave music, counterculture, inertia, ownership of land and freedom. It’ll certainly have queer elements, no doubt.

Lastly, we are named after the biggest selling single of 2001, so we always ask what is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
‘Always Be My Baby’ is a grooooove. Takes me right back to the 90s. Innocence, optimism, slow jams, MTV, Nickelodeon. Those were the days…

For more info and tickets see www.cruisetheplay.co.uk