Smile! Jay, Harris and George – three of the most entertaining and well-spoken half-wits you’ll ever meet – are back on stage at the Guild Festival Theatre’s Greek Theatre in Scarborough this summer.
After the success of last summer’s delightful Three Men in a Boat, the Guild Festival Theatre is presenting the sequel Three Men on a Bike by Mark Brownell, which is also based on the writings of satirist Jerome K. Jerome. Where Boat saw the titular three men undertake the Edwardian craze of pleasure boating on the Thames River, Bike sees them voyage to Germany, where they hop on the Victorian bicycle craze, in order to cycle from Hamburg to Hanover to . . . the Black Forest to . . .? To be honest, the geography is a little beside the point – and that’s a feature of Three Men on a Bike, not a bug. As Jay at one point notes, you won’t get any useful information about Germany from this travelogue.
Nor, by the by, will you see a single physical bike. Director Sue Miner, per her forte, expertly directs her cast as they conjure everything — the landscapes of England, the crossing of the English Channel, various settings in Germany, the tandem and individual cycles they ride, and their succession of cycling mishaps — out of almost nothing. Their sole props are two chairs and (stuffed) dog Montmorency, who returns for the opening of the play. This minimalist approach – abetted by Miner’s skilled choreography and the wonderfully expressive physicality of the actors (particularly as they repeatedly “mount up” and fall off their cycles) — enlists the audience in co-creating the silliness of this trip. The result is immersive, engaging and funny.
If you are lucky enough to have seen Three Men in a Boat last summer, the four main ingredients that made it so good are all fully accounted for in Three Men on a Bike. Miner’s direction is the first. The other three are the delightful and captivating actors. Azeem Nathoo’s Jay is our earnest, well-spoken narrator. Dry, droll and charming, he is the newly published author of Three Men in a Boat, and so is comically conscious of the burden of penning (and starring in) a sequel. Jack Copland delivers another standout performance as the benighted, self-deluded Harris (who is for my money is the thickest of the three). With his expressive voice, comedic flair and captivating physicality, he hatches nonsensical plans, misremembers the past, and winks with comic charm at the audience. (An early highlight involves the surprise revelation that he has gotten married since the trio’s last adventure.) And Suchiththa Wickremesooriya rounds out the trio as lanky, practical, fast-talking banker George, who is perpetually exasperated by Harris’ foibles.
Nathoo, Copland and Wickremesooriya bring their characters to life with humour, polish and an impeccable sense of timing – and the abundant chemistry of the trio multiplies their individual strengths. It’s a delight to accompany them as they navigate one ridiculous mishap after another with unwarranted bravado, a near-bottomless capacity for misunderstanding, and a predilection for witty banter and comic asides.
The journey across the imagined European landscape brings our three men into comical contact with a new and varied assortment of characters — among them ship captains, policemen, farmers, famed singers and loud cats – all of whom the actors also take turns bringing to life. So fear not: despite the Victorian setting, you’ll find no stuffy history or geography or even cycling lessons here. This is an exercise of pure human folly, navigated in open space by three amiable and tuneful fluorescently-garbed British lightweights.
The story relies perhaps a little too much on fond backward glances at the events in the first play, which are not really necessary. (Three such splendidly silly creatures can stand on their own six self-satisfied feet!) But this is a minor quibble. The writing is sharp, the direction is innovative, the performances are captivating, and – particularly when the actors begin cycling up and down Germany’s phantom inclines on their phantom bikes – the show is frequently flat-out hilarious.
Ideal for an outdoor summer evening, Three Men on a Bike is a delightful and entertaining journey that reminds us that sometimes – maybe most of the time — the best way to navigate life is simply to barrel ahead and embrace its absurdity.
Three Men on a Bike continues until August 4, 2024. Visit guildfestivaltheatre.ca to reserve tickets.
© Scott Sneddon, SesayArts Magazine, 2024
