Rowing against the stream

THREE MEN IN A BOAT

(Oldham Coliseum)


I WANTED to like this one; I really did. I was a big admirer of Original Theatre’s adaptation of the First World War drama “Birdsong” and expected the same sort of careful work once again.

But this adaptation of the famous Jerome K Jerome comic novel is a hotch-potch; a mix of period and modern, songs, mime, comic business and supposedly comic dialogue greatly overplayed by the three hard-working actors, stuck as they are with a fairly leaden script.

The evening follows the two-week rowing trip up the Thames from London by J (Alastair Whatley), Harris (Tom Hackney) and George (Paul Westwood).

The trio sets out for relaxation but ends up having several rather non-adventures — related here as a talk about the trip given in the back room of an admittedly nicely-designed pub set, complete with non-speaking pianist (Anna Westlake).

While this is all very well as an idea, the result is rather different. Jerome comes across as a bit stand-offish with his friends who are admittedly rather dim.

But it’s the leaden humour and progress that really begins to pall. The three men wander about the stage, do a bit of business here, a comic song there, ostensibly relating incidents of the journey as they go.

The trouble is the three didn’t have much in the way of interesting adventures, so the show has to be filled out with music hall recitations, banter and jokes vaguely in keeping with the period concerned — though director and writer Craig Gilbert isn’t averse to sticking in the odd modern reference as he goes.

Given the script isn’t terribly incident-packed or funny, it falls to the actors to try to make it so.

But the one thing you can’t do with an unfunny premise is improve it by overacting, which is what often happens here.

Some might find this sort of thing charming and as relaxed as the book, but I found it a bit of a mess from start to finish, not very funny and despite its early 9.40pm finish, overstretched.