Rehearsals are now well underway for Three Hens in a Boat, the brand-new comedy from Camille Ucan, coming to Reading Rep this May. We sat down with the cast to learn more about their characters, the production, and why a hen do trapped on a small boat with only close family is a guaranteed recipe for disaster. 

 

As well as being the playwright, Camille Ucan plays Jay, alongside Verona Rose as Gloria and Ellen O’Grady as Claudett, who all star in this bold, laugh-out-loud comedy with heart. Read on to discover what audiences have in store for the modern retelling of Jerome K. Jerome’s classic tale of comic misadventures along the River Thames. 

 

First of all, tell us about your characters, who do you play and what are they like?

 

Ellen:  I play Claudette.  She’s a grandmother, and is close to her daughter and granddaughter. But she’s quite controlling and a little bit tight. She’s very  religious, she loves being in church and is very much a family person. Jay and Gloria are basically her whole world, so she kind of lives for them really. She’s got church and her family, and that’s her life. But she’s very much the head of the household, the matriarch! I think she’s always run her house and home with a rod of iron, she’s a grafter, she’s a hard worker.

Verona: I play the character of Gloria. She is Jay’s mum and Claudette’s daughter. She is fabulous. She’s fierce. She’s fun. She’s a cool mum. But I think she humbles herself a little bit. Because Gloria is somebody that is all about herself; “it’s all about me, Gloria has arrived, the show has started because I’m here”, you know? So I think maybe throughout the play she softens a little bit, and she realises with her expectations on who Jay is or who Jay isn’t, that she shouldn’t force on her too much.

Camille: I play Jay, she’s the youngest of the Hen Do. She’s a bit of a sensitive soul; she has elements of her mum and grandma, but she probably sits somewhere in between them and she’s often trying to be the mediator. She’s never really known what she wants to do with her life, which has been hard for her, especially as her mum is a very successful artist. She’s sort of flip-flopped between loads of different courses for her life, but never really knows what to do. And something happens in the play, which forces her to have a focus, but maybe doesn’t turn out in the way she’s expecting or hoping it to…

 

How do we find your characters at the start of the play?

 

Verona: I think at the beginning of the play, Gloria is in a really, really good place in her life. She is a successful artist. She’s happy. She’s kind of walking to the beat of her own drum. She’s the kind of person in the middle of those two generations. I  think for Gloria, being on this hen do and on this tiny skiff with her mum and her daughter is amazing. She really wants to reconnect with her daughter, who she wants a better relationship with.

Ellen: Claudette is very traditional, without question. She was brought up in the late 50s in Guyana, so church, family and marriage is very important to her. She feels that she wants to be loved within her family.. I  think the switch from coming from a traditional family and then coming to England from Guyana was quite a massive change for her. So she has her traditions in ways of her culture, her love of food, how she views things, how she likes things cooked, and how things are very different for her family here to how things used to be for her. So I think she’s constantly trying to show her daughter and granddaughter how she believes things should be, traditionally, which they don’t tend to follow most of the time, but that’s ok.

I think her relationship with Gloria is at times tricky. Her daughter is very feisty and full on, but I think Claudette tries to have a good relationship with both her and Jay. 

Camille: I think she’s super excited to be doing this trip with her family, but also apprehensive.  It was kind of her idea, so she’s got pressure to deliver for it to be good. But her mum and grandma do her head in a lot of the time, so the fact that she can’t ever get away and she’s chosen to put herself in this position, I think is very frustrating for her at times. She is trying to laugh stuff off and have a nice time, but I think the pressure bubbles over and she does have a bit of an outburst. Before Jay goes on this hen party on the riverboat, she’s engaged to her boyfriend, Liam, and she’s at university studying to be a nurse. And by the end of the play, some of those things might not still be in place.

 

Tell us more about the family dynamics at play here, and the setting of this hen do in close quarters.

 

Camille: I think everyone is a product of their family in some way, whatever family dynamic they’ve grown up in. So Jay is in some ways fighting against a lot of the things she’s been brought up around. She has a closer relationship with her grandma, and I think that she’s hoping this trip is going to mend some of the relationship problems she has with her mum. But being forced to be together on this boat trip throws up how similar they are, and how different they are. 

Verona: Gloria is both mother and daughter on this boat, which I think is a beautiful dynamic. Lot of people have different relationships with their mum and also their daughters. In this space, Gloria is almost like the child; the child of Claudette but also sometimes like Jay’s child too, because her mum had such a massive input on bringing up Gloria’s daughter, Jay. Gloria wasn’t always the best mum, because she often puts herself before Jay.

Ellen: I think Claudette is actually quite apprehensive because, let’s face it, she’s going to be on a boat with her daughter and her granddaughter.  I think there’s a secret part of her that hopes she gets closer to her daughter and closer also to her granddaughter. So I think she’s hoping that she can let her hair down a little bit, but still keep with the traditions,  get her Bible out every now and then!

 

How do you feel to be appearing in the world premier of Camille’s play

 

Ellen: Ecstatic. I feel it’s a privilege to do new writing like this. I’m just excited to be a part of this project and to work with Rona, Camille and Abbi and see how we put this play together. And I hope that we get the opportunity to show everybody different forms of relationships between these three women. 

Verona: I am so excited to be the first person to ever play Gloria! I think Camille has done an excellent job with this play; I see Gloria in my family and other people’s families, and I’m just so excited to be playing her.

 

If your characters were trapped on a boat, what would be their song and luxury item of choice?

 

Camille: I think Jay’s  song would be Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’. It’s an absolute banger to have on repeat. And her luxury item would probably be a George Foreman sandwich toasting grill, so she can make a cheese toasty and enjoy Madonna in the sun. Yes please.

Ellen: Claudette’s song publicly would be  “Yes, Jesus Loves Me”, but if she wasn’t being watched it would be “Funking for Jamaica”.  But that would be in the dark and in secret. And then her luxury item would be a  Louis Vuitton handbag that was like Mary Poppins’ where everything could come out that she needed, especially specific foods.

Verona: I think Gloria’s song of choice would be ‘Optimistic’ by Sounds of Blackness. It’s just a wicked song and Gloria larger than life and she always looks on the bright side of life. So I think that would be her song of choice. And then a luxury item, definitely a lippy! But also some paint brushes, canvas so she can relax with a glass of wine and paint the world as it goes past her. 

 

Finally, if you could describe the play in three words, what would they be?

 

Camille: Funny, surprising, and unmissable!

Ellen: Extraordinary. Celebration. Hysterical.

Verona: I would say it’s relatable, it’s funny and this is more than one word, but it’s a piece of home.

 

‘Three Hens in a Boat’ plays  at Reading Rep from Thursday 1 to Saturday 17 May, before moving to the Watermill Theatre in Newbury on Thursday 22 May.

 

Tickets are available here.