June 18-21:

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

Bookings: merrigong.com.au or 4224 5999

Tickets: $63-$43

When acclaimed Australian playwright David Williamson wanted a class A villain for his latest play Cruise Control, he created a character based on one of the most unpleasant people he had met - the failed British novelist.

"I have met a few and they are bitter, acerbic and awful," he says.

"The audience loves insufferable people, they're the basis of comedy ... bad behaviour is essential and in this play there's plenty of it."

In Cruise Control, which opens on Wednesday at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, three couples book themselves for a luxury cruise ship, but find themselves trapped together for seven days and nights.

Each couple wants to use this trip to enliven their romance.

Instead, the Americans, English and Australians are forced to dine together with stirring sexual tensions and cultural misunderstandings creating a gripping tension.

The play's genesis was a cruise trip boarded by David and his wife.

"I didn't get the idea until some time after we took the cruise," he says. "I thought about how dramatic and comedic it could be."

The 72-year-old playwright says he also directed the piece, so he could pick the cast himself.

"I've been blessed with one of the greatest casts I've ever had," he says.

Henri Szeps, who plays a New York Jewish dentist, feels the part was written for him.

"He has lots of really funny shit to do and there's also good sensitive stuff for this character," Henri says.

The role plays to his strength as an actor - timing.

Being in tune with the audience's hearts and mind is Henri's speciality, a skill the 70-year-old says is developed through experience, though you have to be born with it in the first place.

"When I was five I could make people laugh by doing silly caricatures," he says.

"You gradually get the rhythm of the other person's brain, and when you're acting you start to listen to a collective brain and soul."

Despite his passion for the craft, this will be Henri's final play.

As a young actor he grew up watching his idols become too old to remember their lines, and he vowed never to let that happen to him.

"To jump from rehearsals to facing the audience, that gap is now so terrifying and makes me trip up in the first few performances," he says.

Once this show is finished he plans to set up an apartment in England with his wife to spend more time with his first grandson.

Henri Szeps and Kate Fitzpatrick play the New York Jewish couple, the English duo are played by Felix Williamson and Michelle Doake, while Peter Phelps and Helen Thomson step in the shoes of Australian couple Darren and Imogen Brodie.

Kenneth Moraleda plays the cheerful Filipino waiter.