REVIEW: Don’t Rock the Boat at the Mill at Sonning

The riverside setting of the Mill at Sonning is ideal –and pretty idyllic – for Robin Hawdon’s comedy about two very different families week ending on a converted barge.

We begin with the Bullhead family boarding ‘The Bunty’ – an ingeniously set with festoon lights, grass riverbank (with actual water and morning mist!) and gangplank to the boat itself, complete with a wooden galley, convertible table and guest bedroom. 

But all is not as calm as the surroundings might suggest. 

Arthur Bullhead sees himself as captain, as his baseball cap proclaims. He hectors wife Mary and teenage daughter Shirley, fussing about their lack of haste – and enthusiasm.

His family is unimpressed by his fluster and bemused that the Coombs family, whom they barely know, have been invited to join them. There have just been fleeting meetings at school sports day and Shirley is mutinous against her dad’s bullishness and insists that, Wendy Coombs, is just a classmate, not a friend. 

When the Coombs do rock up, if polo-shirted very smart-casual people ever rock – the  Bullheads are at loggerheads.

Despite being bombarded by Arthur’s ferocious hospitality, it’s all quite cordial on board until the teenagers go off into town and Arthur’s real reasons for the invitation becomes apparent.

Cue tension, rows and some startling revelations. 

It’s enjoyable to see the situation build and the characters reveal themselves, in some cases to their own surprise.

Steven Pinder is the mainstay as Arthur, with a fair splash of Del Boy in his manner making me smile, especially when he is cajoling the others to do as he wants. The  role of his put-upon wife Mary is less developed than the other characters but Melanie Gutteridge does a godd line in bemused exasperation while Frances’s Barrett strops wonderfully as rebellious Shirley.

The Combes family and up on quite a journey, even if the boat never slips its moorings. Harry Gostelow is buttoned up John, Rachel Fielding is calmly amused as Carol and Hannah Brown is their shy – initially anyway – daughter Wendy.

The names Wendy and Shirley aren’t quite right for kids of the 90s and the script does seem dated in parts, even allowing for that decade. 

But there are some very funny lines, hilarious scenes and Jackie Hutson’s set makes it a visual treat too.

Rock up!