'Three Men in a Boat' - Play review

I'm a part of the Nuffield Youth Theatre, and one of the peers of being thus is that I can get £5 tickets to most shows which come to the Nuffield. This time, as with 'The Events', my director stressed how good this play is, so I went along to see what it's all about. (Just for the record I also have tickets to go and see 'Othello' and '1984')

Normally I don't think I'd really choose to watch a comedy. From my experience, I much prefer tragedies, horror, war, things with a sad ending, or at least where characters have to face up to serious adversity. Much of my new experience watching Shakespeare's plays is changing my opinion of comedies and happy plays, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed. I'm not much of a laugher. I'm sure a normal person would have 'been in stitches', but I laughed more than I normally do.

If you don't know 'Three Men in a Boat' (I know I sat down in the theatre knowing nothing about it), it's set in a pub, and it's three London gentlemen humorously telling the humorous story of their holiday on the Thames. The three main actors had excellent comedic synergy between them, and because it was a something of a play-within-a-play whenever they made a mistake in telling the story they could make it part of the joke that the main characters aren't very good at telling their story.
They also made a mockery of the audiences ability to suspend our disbelief and our ludicrous willingness to believe that a table, two chairs and a bar stool could represent a boat on the Thames. It was quite existential in that they were asking us to believe while mocking us for doing so, and that probably drew us even more into the story.

It was a few days ago now and so a lot of the details have faded, but one thing which still stands out to me was the packing scene. Stereotypically men are dreadful at holiday packing, especially if they claim to be good at it. As these are all three men who claim to be proficient packers, you can probably imagine the hilarious antics of this scene. Our hero, whose name I now shamefully cannot recall, has a great fear of forgetting a toothbrush. Dramatic lighting, dramatic music on the piano, our hero's foolish friend takes a toothbrush on a string and dangles it above the hero's head, intoning "Is this a toothbrush which I see before me, it's handle towards my hand? Come let me clutch thee", etc. Now as a recent Shakespeare convert and a long time Captain America fan I can confidently say:

Just wonderful.

I always seem to end up talking about the music, but then I'm a very musically-minded person (by which I mean, I appreciate music, I don't really know shit-al about it!). There was a piano on set - it was set in a pub, a pianist was supposed to be the act which preceded the one we're watching, and the characters interrupt the pianist to start their story. Though reluctant to begin with, she ends up playing along, playing little ditties to provide an atmosphere for the story, and music for the few comedy songs which come to break up the action (and those really were a gift). There was even a sad song for the indulgence of people like me. The whole play was happy, but they managed to fit in one sad song with minor chords and beautiful singing, and then it all went back to normal, and the play almost seemed happier by comparison.

I'm not entirely sure how to rate this, it's a really short review and I watched it on Saturday (it's now Tuesday and a lot has happened betwixt now and then), I think I'll just give it an 8/10 - it was really very good. Now to write a review of the Othello I watched last night before the audition for the Batman panto this evening!

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