THREE MEN IN A BOAT

Rose Theatre Kingston

★★★★

“funny, farcical and full of heart”

‘Three Men in a Boat’ – a riotous, riverside romp – makes its world premiere on the banks of the Thames. Packed with preposterous pandemonium, audiences will fall in love with this bonkers bout of Britishness.

On a whim, Jerome, Harris and George set off on a boating misadventure from Kingston to Oxford ahead of Harris’ wedding. As the impromptu stag descends into chaos, the hapless trio – helped by Monty the dog – must muddle through together.

Written by Al Smith and based on Jerome K. Jerome’s classic comic novel, this inventive musical gleefully taps into panto and music hall traditions, with cheeky innuendo, knockabout slapstick and a non-existent fourth wall. The dialogue is full of wicked one-liners and devastating Victorian disdain, set against escalating absurdity to keep you on your toes. There’s emotional depth too, touching on strained friendships, pre-wedding jitters and grief with surprising clarity. A couple of moments could be tighter, particularly a tongue-twister routine that goes on a tad long, and the somewhat leisurely build to the finale. Even so, it’s a charming caper that cleverly refreshes a British classic for modern audiences.

Grant Olding’s music and lyrics blend music hall traditions with modern irreverence, with plenty of period styles – including a rapid-fire patter song akin to “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” after a few pints – and a lot more swearing. The orchestrations are delightfully playful and the lyrics match the script’s wit line for line. The hallucinatory drum-and-bass detour could crank up the delirium further. Otherwise, the score complements the production’s spark and silliness beautifully.

Christopher Haydon’s direction – with movement from John Nicholson, puppetry by Chris Pirie, fight direction by Riad Richie and choreography by Simon Hardwick – embraces the story’s whimsy with infectious charm. Cast scramble over audience members, swimmers burst through the stage, and a gloriously chaotic swan attack sends goslings flying into the auditorium. The double revolves are used to great effect, conjuring a shifting labyrinth – sorry, maze – and picturesque river sequences, while the pacing and comic timing rarely put a foot wrong. Though transitions could be slicker – hindered by an unruly lightweight curtain – and the finale feels a touch buttoned-up after the bonkers Act One closer. Even so, this lively, inventive production always has a surprise up its sleeve and proves immensely good fun.

Simon Kenny’s set and costume design perfectly capture the anarchic spirit, with everything delightfully off kilter, prim period artwork becoming gleefully upended, and offbeat attire brilliantly reflecting the characters and chaos. Olding’s sound design brings atmosphere and impact, though the vocals could sit higher in the mix to land every lyric. Simisola Majekodunmi’s lighting shifts effortlessly between realism and absurdity, while Charlie Tymms’ puppets are utterly charming.

This superb cast sparkles with wit and precision, landing every punchline with razor-sharp timing and navigating ad-libs and mishaps – including a stubborn urn lid – with effortless flair. Jonny Weldon’s Jerome is tragically forthright: a man who always has the words, except when they matter most. Richard David-Caine’s George cuts through the Victorian verbosity with deliciously dry barbs, making every appearance a treat. Bronté Barbé’s Harris is sweet, earnest and endearingly oblivious, before switching seamlessly into his warm-but-weary fiancée. Meanwhile, Monty the dog, charmingly puppeteered by Calum Donald-Bruce, repeatedly steals scenes with scruffy charisma and unexpected wisdom. Together they’re an irresistible bunch with plenty of vocal firepower.

‘Three Men in a Boat’ is funny, farcical and full of heart. This is one trip up the Thames you won’t regret making.

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

Rose Theatre Kingston

Reviewed on 23rd September 2026

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Helen Murray

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

★★★★

“a performance that convincingly and loyally wrings the emotion from the text”

“Maybe you wanna see an effect? A piece of magic?” Charlie Fairbanks (Adam Gillen) asks us, explaining that magicians prefer to use the term ‘effect’ rather than ‘trick’. What they create are illusions by taking advantage of how we perceive and process information. A dove fluttering from a hat is used to draw an audience’s attention away from the actual trick. Just as some believe the moon landing was a trick (fake news half a century before the phrase was coined) by the American Government to distract us from Vietnam and the Cold War. It is this merging of the global and the personal that informs Al Smith’s writing in “Radio” that enables us to connect instantly to the play.

Smith’s father worked for the US space programme and helped to choose the landing sites on the surface of the moon for Apollo 11. He grew up hearing his stories about that time, and about the highs and lows of that era in the States. By extension, “Radio” is about fathers and sons, pride and protest, love and war; a kind of love-letter to his own father and to a lost era. Alone on the stage, Adam Gillen treats the writing with reverence in a performance that convincingly and loyally wrings the emotion from the text. It is no small challenge to keep an audience clinging to your words (and there’s a fair few of them) for eighty minutes. And Gillen does it with style, honesty and subtlety. Director Josh Roche avoids gimmickry and allows the actor’s storytelling to take centre stage.

Charlie Fairbanks was born at noon, in June of 1950 in Kansas, in the dead centre of the 20th century and in the dead centre of the United States. The trouble is that the centre has a habit of shifting. As does the focus of the story. But that is not a criticism; Gillen’s anecdotal flair adds spontaneity so that the flow of the narrative never ebbs as it meanders and side streams. The strands of his story overlap, like fragments of clarity from a continually spinning radio dial, in a performance that crackles with understated energy.

While chasing his own dreams of becoming an astronaut, Charlie navigates the American Dream and the twists and turns of his changing world – from JFK’s assassination, Vietnam, the cold war and, central to the play, the space race. His is a heartwarming story of reaching for the moon, and of the effects of seeing our world from afar. The real achievement of the moon landing, says Charlie at the close of the monologue, wasn’t that we got there but that, in getting there, we realised the value of all we left behind.

And like the cycle of the moon, we are back at the start – with an echo of Charlie’s opening question. But by now we have the answer. It doesn’t take an illusionist’s trickery to know that we have just seen a piece of magic.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Helen Maybanks

Tag Archives: Al Smith

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

★★★★

Rose Theatre Kingston

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

Rose Theatre Kingston

★★★★

“funny, farcical and full of heart”