Writer: Robin Hawdon
Director: Sally Hughes
One of the challenges of any modern comedy that relies on a single set is how to ensure that all the action can believably be contained within the stage’s confines. For Robin Hawdon’s Don’t Rock the Boat, written and set in the 1990s, the answer is to have everything take place on a boat. Well, nearly everything – the Bunty is a houseboat moored somewhere on the Berkshire leg of the Thames, presumably not too far from the Mill at Sonning’s own environs.
Renovated and with every room clad in stained pine, the boat would be a spacious retreat for its owner, Essex-born property developer Arthur Bullhead (Steven Pinder), his wife Mary and teenage daughter Shirley. But when Arthur invites Shirley’s prim classmate Wendy and her equally upright parents to a weekend visit, suddenly the space begins to feel cramped. And as Arthur begins to needle Wendy’s father, who is in charge of the local council’s planning committee, business tensions start to add to the familial ones.
The undoubted star of the Mill’s revival is Jackie Hutson’s set design, a cutaway boat nestling against a grassy riverbank. Walls are cut away to give a sense of the space and afford actors room to roam the length of the Bunty, while still creating a sense of claustrophobia.
The real difficulties arise from the characterisations of the families that emerge from Hawdon’s writing. While there is much that is modern about the sense of a developer wanting to sweet-talk the local council into approving his plans for a supermarket, the delineation of characters in the script feels particularly uncomplicated. Giving Pinder’s Arthur a surname of Bullhead feels particularly on the nose, as he barges around and bosses about his wife, always as if about to erupt like a cornered bull. Melanie Gutteridge’s Mary takes advantage of body language to express her frustrations with her husband’s behaviour, the script affording her little such luxury.
Harry Gostelow and Rachel Fielding, as the visiting couple, offer a calmer presence, at least initially. Indeed, for much of the performance, it is Fielding’s Carol who appears to be the most level-headed of the entire cast. One never quite buys the conceit that she is taken by Arthur’s overt flirtations – even after years of marriage to a wet husband, would she ever consider such a boorish lout – but a subsequent expression of what it feels like to be consumed by teenage lust as she defends her daughter (Hannah Brown) after she meets a boy shows some teeth that the play never really bares at any point before or since.
There are several points at which Pinder, who bears the majority of the script on his shoulders, feels like he is reaching for his next line. Nevertheless, his performance carries the show as required.
While this comedy is dated stylistically, it is not an unpleasant watch and, given the suitability with the Mill at Sonning’s location along the Thames, it is pleasant enough. Indeed, one could very well say that the last thing that Don’t Rock the Boat is, well, to rock the boat. The play, like the Bunty, is thoroughly becalmed.
Continues until 6 September 2025
