About PEEL

The PEEL Entertainment Group (PEEL) is the UK’s fastest growing entertainment company, and provides live entertainment solutions across the cruise, hotel, leisure and heritage sectors.

PEEL is proud to have been providing award-winning entertainment on Thomson Cruises fleet of beautiful cruise ships for the last eight years – its productions are consistently voted in the top ten by passengers and leading industry publications alike.

Earlier this year, PEEL and Thomson Cruises were approached by Fresh One – the production company owned by TV chef Jamie Oliver – who wanted to high octane entertainment programme with a talent contest in a new and exciting television format.

Susannah Daley, PEEL Managing Director explains:

“Along with Thomson, we have been approached by various production companies wanting to do a fly-on-the-wall ‘expose’ on life as a cruise ship entertainer. We have always said ‘no’ – we take our work very seriously – although it’s very tough, takes you away from home for long periods, requires huge dedication but it provides one of the most exhilarating opportunities for a young performer in the industry today! 

“Hearing that Jamie Oliver’s company was interested in working with us definitely made us stand up and listen – I personally love his ethos of empowering and encouraging young people from all walks of life to be as successful as they can. It is very much what PEEL are about – working with our entertainers to give them the best possible career experience.  Additionally Thomson were delighted that Fresh wanted to work with a British cruising company.

“Before we knew it, half of team PEEL had decamped to the Thomson Cruises flagship Dream, which was sailing the Caribbean – sounds great you might think! What ensued was six weeks of around-the-clock filming, seven days a week. It was incredibly hard work… working with ten amateur entertainers who were all keen to make their mark, as well as maintaining the incredibly high quality of the entertainment programme for the on-board holiday makers. Stephen Guy, our Cruise Director certainly had his hands full on that score!

“But I hope you’ll agree that the end result is stunning. Visually, the shows and ship look incredible all thanks to Fresh One’s highly specialised 5HD camera, which is normally used to shoot music videos!  There are tears and tantrums along the way for the contestants, but Showboaters has been an incredible experience for everyone at PEEL. I hope viewers will see cruise ship entertainment in a whole new light and I hope young entertainers will be encouraged to get in touch with us to see how we can give them the career opportunity of a lifetime.”