Three Hens in a Boat – A Hilarious Comedy with Revelations

The current production at The Watermill is a debut comedy written by Camille Ucan. I have never known a play to start so suddenly. One moment you are listening to pre-show music, then plunged into darkness and the stage lights go up. A dramatic start, a style repeated several times at the start and end of the two acts.

This was the first play written by Camille Ucan, and if this is anything to go by, I hope there are more to come. She also performs in it to great effect. It is a hilarious comedy with both thoughtful and raucous episodes throughout, interspersed with clever musical interludes. The actors, Camille Ucan, Verona Rose and Ellen O’Grady seem to have a great chemistry, being funny together and are also great individual joke tellers, delivering the punchlines with timing and style, within the tightly delivered dialogue.

The first act ends with a revelation, the clues are there and you can see it coming, but it is a twist nonetheless and sets up the second act. It later becomes apparent that they all have secrets behind the curtain of their imminent nuptials, setting up more twists and the comedy goes along with it.

There are some delightful nods to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, I’ll leave you to spot them, and some clever social comments too. This is a great debut, a well chosen cast and great fun to watch. It’s a short run, so grab some tickets while you can.