Agree with above (plasterboard if you can)
However in this job we used marine ply to box in a soil stack at an angle. The main reason we used marine ply in the shower was to take the weight of all the shower equipment going in.
To get the tiles to stick we used a tanking system in the entire cubicle. We tanked the plastered wall. The marine ply. The plasterboard (it was a mix of materials!)
End result 6 years later? No loose tiles. No water leaks.
The ply (middle) was coated with a tanking system first.
The photo above is a bit hard to understand so I did a quick video for you...
[video=youtube;WvZpIswVQsU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvZpIswVQsU[/video]
The marine ply takes all the weight of the shower gubbins. Having the cupboard made it easy to work from behind to install the shower. And we just screwed into the ply.