Jerome K Jerome was not kind about Reading in Three Men in a Boat. Sculling along the Thames, his narrator observes how the town “does its best to spoil and sully and make hideous as much of the river as it can reach” yet concedes it is “good-natured enough to keep its ugly face a good deal out of sight”.
Reading Rep, which co-produces this new comedy with Newbury’s Watermill, does not hold a grudge. Camille Ucan’s play is bookended by a rapturous quote about sailing from the 1889 novel and even has a skiff named after the author – although, as one character observes, Jerome “sounds like a bit of a twat”.
