The Stage

Three Men in a Boat

Published Monday 27 April 2009 at 10:05 by Hugh Homan

Daniel O’Brien’s witty new adaptation of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) is a sound foundation for the Theatre Royal’s spring tour round the villages of Suffolk and ensures a highly entertaining and amusing couple of hours.

Libby Watson’s simple but evocative set - a couple of oars supporting an outline map of the River Thames and several simple frames which adapt to form the seats in the boat, bar stools and everything else - provides a magical space for the three performers who play J, George and Harris and everyone they meet on their picaresque journey upriver in the 1880s.

We meet the three before the play begins, lounging in the theatre in their striped jackets, puffing on their pipes and chatting to the audience. Alexander Caine as J, the author who instigates the memorable expedition, makes a good leader and keeps the tale flowing. William Kenning as George, tall and commanding, helps us to enjoy every moment of the trek. Simon Yadoo is very amusing as Harris and plays many of the oddball characters encountered on their week’s holiday away from the demands and boredom of their jobs as city clerks.

Peter White (musical director and composer) provides the trio with a number of Victorian songs and pastiches which help considerably with the period flavour and to which the trio respond with laudable vigour and gusto. The three performers work well together, creating expertly that slight feeling of claustrophobia and wobble that being cooped in a boat entails, as well as the camaraderie which results. And each of them contributes to the show’s funniest invention - Montmorency the dog, a deerstalker hat with extra flaps that each animates as called for. Catch them if you can.