Three Men in a Boat

Classically trained, with a bank of film, television and stage experience under his belt, the 71 year-old actor Rodney Bewes has been in show business since he was a child. And, remarkably, since the mid-nineties he has also been touring Three Men in a Boat across the country.

Certainly Bewes really couldn’t seem any more at home than he does in this adaptation of Jerome K. Jerome’s Victorian novel. However, any fear that Bewes’ act may feel over-rehearsed and mechanical is quickly dispelled. He keeps this one-man production fresh with a gently and comically shambolic, self-aware performance. Indeed, Three Men and a Boat, is much less about Jerome’s charming Victorian-gentlemen-on-a-boating-holiday storyline than about Bewes himself and the sheer amount of fun he is having on stage and with his audience. The former Likely Lads star (don’t worry, I’m too young to remember this as well!) is a delight as he potters around the stage, injecting the lovely poetic script with enough innocent humour and good old-fashioned daftness to make this a genuinely funny and enjoyable 70 minutes.

Three Men and a Boat is a very slow paced, gentle production which, given the frantic pace of the world outside, provides some much-needed escapism for the world-weary festival-goer. As a whole the production has a nice, warm atmosphere—akin to being told a long, rambling story by a beloved uncle or grandfather—making Three Men in a Boat a near-perfect early-evening family show.