Treasure Island

Synopsis

Stevenson's story of pirates, double crossing and treasure. Treasure Island follows Young Jim Hawkins and his motley crew across the ocean in their search for hidden pirate spoils. With mutiny in the air they soon face deadly peril from the most ruthless pirate to ever terrorise the seven seas - Long John Silver! So can young 'Jim Lad' out-wit the scoundrel and live to claim the treasure?

Our Review:

18 November 2008

More of a play than a pantomime, Sean Holmes’ hugely enjoyable production of Ken Ludwig’s new adaptation of Treasure Island is a meaty, powerfully staged evening aboard the good ship Hispaniola, with pirates running up the rigging and Long John Silver taking time out to tell Jim Hawkins eight good reasons for peeling a potato.

Keith Allen’s Silver is a likeable cove, dragging his wasted leg behind him encased in a leather crutch-high boot, his trademark parrot (“Pieces of eight”) following an almost separate existence as a Toucan-toupeed tribute to animal animatronics.

Nothing here conforms to tradition or expectation: the parrot’s a parody, and Silver turns out to be an old friend of Jim’s dead dad – whom he unwittingly betrayed, having kidnapped - and an incorrigible quotation master of Shakespeare.

Thus Ludwig invents a new spine to Robert Louis Stevenson’s great story of skulduggery and gold-digging on the high seas, highlighting the r...

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Latest User Review

Sarah Ross - 13 January 2009:

This was really dull. It was such a missed opportunity, no light and dark, no characters that achieved anything more than a local panto. And the band played over most of the narrators script so it was heard to hear. ...

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