Treasure Island (National Theatre, Olivier)
I’m almost in a holiday mood, so this new version of Robert Louis Stevenson‘s wonderful adventure story – mutinous pirates, murder, buried treasure, a boy hero, the black spot, a slime-boltered, hard-done-by island Caliban (Ben Gunn, played by an ethereal, raggedy young Joshua James), a peg-leg villain with a talking parrot – is probably getting one more star than it deserves.
I think I see what’s happened. Adaptor Bryony Lavery has been admirably true to the narrative of the original, but has forgotten to make a theatrical dynamic of it, and the story will be confusing to anyone who’s not read the book. Even the opening sequence of the three weird arrivals at the Admiral Benbow is messed up, with Blind Pew coming on like Patrick Magee in search of another Beckett role.
And there’s a whole lot of gender agenda going on (a sort of panto principal boy revenge tactic) with Jim Hawkins – "live as a bucket of eels, smart as paint" — played by an emotionally inventive and very simpatico girl, Patsy Ferran, who resembles Jeanette Winterson and ends up same-sex snogging on board the good ship Hispaniola.
The last time Lizzie Clachan designed this title, for Sean Holmes at the Haymarket in 2008 (Keith Allen was a tremendous Long John Silver), she set the whole thing on the Hispaniola, a very good idea. This time, she creates a huge hull that separates into claws and uses the Olivier’s drum to the max with a rising interior on board and a descendant journey to the island caves and bubbling spongey surfaces; trouble is, this all becomes a bit camp and 1950s sci-fi, deleting all magic and sense of adventure.
Polly Findlay‘s production also lacks any sort of overall atmosphere, this lack most evident in Arthur Darvill‘s deeply disappointing Long John Silver, lumbered with an electronically animated parrot on his shoulder that might as well be a Monty Python dead one, for all its minimal wit and humour; old-timers at this point will be yearning for the bad old days of Bernard Miles as the Mermaid, Spike Milligan as Ben Gunn, etc…
The show also struggles to establish any kind of tone, or indeed attitude, until at least the final scenes of poetic navigation by the constellations, which are picked out in blue neon strips in a night-time planetarium by lighting designer Bruno Poet. John Tams‘s selection of folk songs and shanties seem bolted on, not growing organically from the stage action, and I didn’t understand why Gillian Hanna‘s game old Grandma was wearing ear muffs.
Nick Fletcher doubles Squire Trelawney with the parrot’s voice, and I didn’t see his lips move. Angela De Castro is a daunting bearded lady (why?) as Israel Hands, and there are a few nice cameos including Oliver Birch‘s streaky-haired George Badger and David Langham‘s spindly Dick the Dandy, at one point throwing a hissy fit about having only one cossie. Nice line, but indicative of how this Treasure Island hasn’t decided on whether it’s mint or fake currency.
Treasure Island plays at the National Theatre (Olivier) until 8 April 2015.
