Three Men in a Boat: A Comedy of Errors (with Music)

This comedy for the theatre has been adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s classic 1889 novel of the same name. It’s the original ‘Road Trip’ and ‘Buddy Comedy.’ These are no prim and proper Englishmen: these are three young lads out looking to blow off some steam, drink a little bit too much, and hopefully meet more than a few girls. And in 1889, there was no better place to do that than cruising up the Thames in your very own boat, with nothing but the call of the wild as your guide. At least that was their plan. And nothing went according to plan.

Blake Heathcote’s stage adaptation is a comedic delight, laugh out loud funny and wonderfully theatrical. It premiered in Canada in 1989 and was subsequently given an enthusiastically received production directed by Alan Ayckbourn at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round in North Yorkshire, UK.

Published here for the first time, this adaptation of Three Men in a Boat offers something quite a bit different from the usual theatrical fare. As Time Out observed, “[If you’re] tired of everything meaning something? Just want to have fun?” — then Three Men in a Boat might be precisely the tonic you have been looking for.