Princess to get service with a song from Three Waiters

THEY may not have the girth or the gravitas of the Three Tenors but the one thing the Three Waiters have over their more famous counterparts is the element of surprise.

These tuxedo-wearing singers have become the biggest party icebreaker around and are now about to put on a royal command performance in front of the Princess Royal at a dinner for the Animal Health Trust at the Landmark Hotel tomorrow night.

Robert Jon, Bryden Stacey and Peter Stanford glide around functions, deftly serving drinks and nibbles before revealing their true vocations by bursting into an aria or musical showstopper.

Encouraged by Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan, who heard them sing at a party, their repertoire runs from Nessun Dorma to West Side Story's Tonight and is interspersed with wisecracking banter. All three are formally trained as classical singers.

Robert Jon said: "Whichever venue we are at we borrow the uniforms so that we look exactly like the waiting staff there. We work as waiters for half the evening until one announces that a guest has bet him to sing and it turns into a kind of singing competition with the other two.

"On one occasion we did drop a tray of champagne but on the whole we know what we're doing. Right up until halfway through the act people still believe we're waiters."

In a packed festive season the Australian trio will be serving up mince pies and mulled wine while belting out the classics at a variety of events including the Microsoft party on the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh on New Year's Eve.

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