Reading Rep's first ever collaboration with the Watermill Theatre in Newbury is an entirely new take on Jerome K Jerome's nineteenth-century classic comic novel Three Men in a Boat. Expect an exuberant celebration of women together in this delightful comedy which twinkles like sunlight on water.
It was written by Camille Ucan, who takes the role of Jay, the youngest of a trio of inter-generational characters. Jay (the name is shared with a character in Jerome K Jerome's best-selling novel) has hired a skiff to celebrate her and her mother and grandmother's upcoming marriages. They plan to travel upriver in style but soon discover skiffs are not motorised, have no cabins and are in fact just open rowing boats.
Life on board is not at all plain sailing—by the end of this journey, there have been some painful revelations that test the ties that bind three appealing and larger-than-life characters, who are all crammed together in one very small boat.
Jasmine Swan's evocative and naturalistic set features a beautifully painted backcloth which works well with Jonathan Chan's atmospheric lighting. Director Abigail Pickard Price has put together a nicely paced show that makes the most Camille Ucan's delightfully witty dialogue.
All three hugely different characters are strongly delineated, with winning performances by Ellen O'Grady as Claudette, Verona Rose as Claudia and Camille Ucan as Jay.
Look out for a hilarious mention of a patio jet-washer in this up-to-the-minute and amusing new show which charmed the press night crowd. Three Hens in a Boat transfers from Reading Rep to the Watermill on 22 May where it runs to 7 June.