Don't Rock the Boat, The Mill at Sonning review - all aboard for some old-school comedy mishaps

Now 45 years in the past, its dazzling star gone a decade or so, The Long Good Friday is a monument of British cinema. Its extraordinary locations, caught just before London’s Docklands were transformed forever, speaks to a past world. But the wheeler-dealer, Harold Shand, played by Bob Hoskins at the peak of his powers, left many ancestors, from his near contemporary, Arthur Daley, to a few who have ascended to the highest Offices of State.

One such, conjured into life by Robin Hawdon in the early 90s, is Arthur Bullhead (of course, Arthur Bullhead) owner of The Bunty, moored on the Thames not far from Sonning itself. He’s an Essex barrowboy on the make. Like Harold Shand, he’s an unscrupulous property developer with big dreams, but unlike Shand, he doesn’t hang his enemies on meat hooks (though he’d certainly think about it). He invites the well-connected solicitor, John Coombes, for a weekend on the barge with a view to sweet-talking him into green-lighting a supermarket deal (with a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, natch). In classic sitcom style, and this play is very much a sitcom-influenced show, the two families are trapped and tensions overflow to, wait for it, hilarious effect.

Before we get into the reviewing equivalent of John Cooper Clarke’s “death at a birthday party” and spoil all the fun with analysis, it needs to be said that there are plenty of laughs to enjoy, no easy feat to pull off at the best of times in a theatre and tougher still after the splendid meal that comes with a ticket. I may have known what was coming every step of the way and I may have raised a sceptical eyebrow at some of the plotting, but laugh I did, and that’s a rarer and rarer pleasure in the stalls. It’s not Frayn, but what is, and where can you see his masterpieces on stage these days?

Steven Pinder has a bit of Bradley Walsh’s easy charm about his brass-necked ducker and diver. There are times when he’s genuinely repugnant and wilfully insensitive, but his wife, Mary’s, exasperated love (a well-judged performance from Melanie Gutteridge) seeing all but saying little, convinces us that, like his namesake Mr Daley, underneath, he’s all right. As the plot plays out, and this is a mark that Hawdon knows his audiences in the 90s and now in the 20s, we realise that he’s less interested in skewering the wide boys and more interested in nailing the small-minded hypocrites we elect to rule over us. There's plenty for an elite-despising Reform voter to cheer in the script.

Their counterparts, the uptight Coombes, are harder to believe in. Harry Gostelow’s John is full to the brim of liberal smugness, never more than an inch away from an equivocal reply while ensuring that his own interests are protected. That he has a secret is no surprise, but would it be disclosed by his wife of 18 years? Sure Rachel Fielding’s Carol is bored screwless, but a woman with her history knows how to read a room even with the licence to transgress a boat always grants.Stealing the show are Francesa Barrett and Hannah Brown (pictured above) as the two daughters, Shirley – an Essex girl to the end of her capri pants – and Wendy, 17 going on 12. Mardy Shirley first bantz with the Bullhead parents, but she’s a smart cookie who knows what she wants and how to get it. Wendy is all mousy misery to start with, confidence not so much shattered as never there in the first place, but the girls bond, respect each other and have a lot of fun. God knows they’re better people than their parents, even if they attract their disapproval. Barrett and Brown are very funny too!

As you will surmise, the play is dated with that whiff of the large print section of the library about it, and some of the plotlines demand a significant suspension of disbelief, but it’s also a lot of fun. Back for a second run at this venue, I expect some of those who saw it the first time will be back to be gently tickled again. And, if nothing else, Sally Hughes gets another chance to direct a wonderful cast round Jackie Hutson’s superbly detailed set.

Just because it’s not Chekhov nor Ayckbourn doesn’t mean it’s not funny or thought-provoking. And every laugh shared with others is a hit of serotonin that’s worth every penny of the ticket price.     

• Don't Rock the Boat at The Mill at Sonning until 6 September
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk