Rehearsal images have been released for Three Men in a Boat, a new comedy with songs opening at Rose Theatre in Kingston on 18 September.
Rose Theatre has released a first look at rehearsals for Three Men in a Boat, which opens in Kingston upon Thames on Friday 18 September and runs to Saturday 10 October 2026. It is a world premiere: a new comedy by Al Smith with original songs by Grant Olding, taken from Jerome K. Jerome’s 1889 novel.
Jonny Weldon plays Jerome, Bronté Barbé plays Harris, Richard David-Caine plays George and Calum Donald-Bruce plays the dog, Montmorency. Weldon was in Rivals and One Day on screen and 101 Dalmatians at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre; Barbé was in Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder! and Oklahoma! at Chichester.
Rose Theatre’s artistic director Christopher Haydon directs. Olding, Tony-nominated for One Man, Two Guvnors, also acts as musical director and sound designer, and John Nicholson is movement director and comedy consultant, building the physical comedy. Set and costume design is by Simon Kenny, lighting by Simisola Majekodunmi, puppetry direction by Chris Pirie and casting by Juliet Horsley, with Claudette Williams as voice and dialect coach and Rebecca Wear as associate director.
The story sends three friends and a dog up the Thames from Kingston to Oxford, a journey undone by rain, eccentric dogs, some spectacularly rancid cheese and, per the theatre, eighteen extremely angry swans. Rose Theatre describes it as Jeeves and Wooster meets Apocalypse Now.
Starting the boat trip in Kingston is not incidental — the theatre sits a few minutes from the stretch of river where Jerome’s narrator sets off.
Three Men in a Boat runs at Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames, from Friday 18 September to Saturday 10 October 2026, with press night on Wednesday 23 September at 7.30pm.
