Nik Page

Brahms and Lizst Cabaret Bar Playa De Las Americas Tenerife

Every Saturday unless cruising

Reviewer Mark Ritchie

Let’s cut to the chase right from the start. In my view, the Cowell money machine, the whole slant of celebrity driven drivel from the children who run 21st Century British television and its detrimental effect on real UK show business makes my blood boil. As a result of this nonsensical approach, Joe and Josephine Public are being kidded into believing that the Cowell talent vehicles are all there is and some are even brain-washed to such an act that they seem to believe that Keith Lemon is actually funny.

The entire problem on what is wrong with British light entertainment was encapsulated in a smallish, but well-appointed Tenerife cabaret bar, which I visited not for the first time on a Saturday evening last month. A solo singer by the name of Nik Page was on stage and after being given a big build-up by a witty D.J type singer called Dion, a 45 minute cabaret set followed, which resulted in a thoroughly deserved standing ovation.

Nik is originally from Yorkshire, but lives in Tenerife and performs in some of the better cabaret bars, in between cruise cabaret engagements. The son of another cabaret great, Barry Santana, Nik gave it to them both barrels, by displaying a renowned and universally admired singing voice, which ranges from the remarkable to the sublime.

You Raise Me Up, some Bocelli hits and even a bit of Tom Jones hip-swinging was thrown in on the night by an artiste who, in any other generation of show business, would surely be an enormous star.

The public are kidded to death and as a result, artistes such as Nik Page and other UK great such as Siobhan Phillips, Ricky K, Rob Linacre and many others too numerous to mention are shamelessly ignored, as Cowell and Co look for more malleable entertainers who will swallow their nonsense, whilst their performances are interspersed with ‘reaction shots’ of judges such as the twitty David Walliams and the gormless and talentless Amanda Holden.

Alright, you guessed it I am up on my soapbox and using Nik Page as an example of the puerile train of thought, which promotes the pleasant but unremarkable Olly Murs , or one of the other quickly forgotten talent-show Johnnies to stardom, while Page and others work the ships and the venues local to them. Nothing wrong with cruise ship cabaret of course, unless you listen to Cowell, who probably believes that anyone past puberty is past their best as a professional entertainer.

The chair-turners on The Voice or the celebrity judges on the X-Factor/ Britain’s Got Talent would no doubt dismiss a truly great artiste such as Nik Page as,’ too cabaret’….whatever the hell they mean by that. The thousands who pack the cruise ship theatres to see Page in action, or even most of the Tenerife holiday-revellers with any musical appreciation at all who let their hair down in the Tenerife cabaret bars will surely tell a different story.

Bottom line is that the real show business continues to work, as do the Cowell gold-dust phone numbers and those daft enough to spend their money by ringing up…now breathe!