A canal boat holiday goes hilariously, horrifyingly wrong. British politeness meets psychological chaos.
Two couples go on a boating holiday together, and run into some strange people and events.
Acting
Rutter's Yorkshire aggression vs. Dunning's trembling poshness.
Writing
Alan Ayckbourn's cruel, precise ear for British embarrassment.
Direction
Johnson traps you on that boat with absolutely no escape.
Director
Terry Johnson
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Ayckbourn wrote this in 1981 as stage satire of Thatcher-era masculinity in collapse; the 1987 TV adaptation arrived just as that anxiety went fully national.
The 'beans' scene—Keith's aggressive defense of tinned food as class warfare—is legendary among British theatre nerds and completely baffles everyone else.
GB
