Treasure Island
★★★★☆ Creative
Royal Lyceum Theatre: Thurs 28 Nov 2024 – Fri 4 Jan 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Treasure Island, the Lyceum’s family Christmas show, is an enchanting production whose energy and visual invention compensate for the occasional mis-step.
Duncan McLean’s new version of RL Stevenson’s classic swashbuckler takes the main characters and the essentials of the story, removing much of the rest. Which is what tends to happen in most adaptations – and fair enough, since few seem to have read the original nowadays.
Jade Chan (Jim), Tim Dalling (Ben Gunn), Dylan Read (Pew), Itxaso Moreno (Billy Bones), Amy Conachan (Lean Jean Silver and TJ Holmes (The Laird). Pic: Jess Shurte.
The setting is moved to a home for ‘reformed pirates’ in Edinburgh, with the island of the title being in Orkney. This provides local colour and is entirely reasonable considering Stevenson’s birthplace and family history, but it is questionable how much else it adds.
The script, while full of likeability and humour, removes much of the jeopardy and meanders at times. It is all very pleasant, but is never particularly scary or thrilling, and is just a little too long.
Victorian roots
The staging more than makes up for most of this, with Wils Wilson’s direction pulling out all the stops. Going back to the Lyceum’s Victorian roots, much use is made in Alex Berry’s set of ropes and trapdoors, while planks and ladders are endlessly reused to make ships and forts.
Even if the narrative might lose some younger audience members, the large constituency who like to spend time building stuff will certainly be thrilled.
Jade Chan (Jim), Tim Dalling (Ben Gunn) TJ Holmes (The Laird), Itxaso Moreno (Billy Bones), Amy Conachan (Lean Jean Silver), Dylan Read (Pew) and understudy Katrina Allen. Pic: Jess Shurte.
The six-strong cast seem to be a much larger ensemble, even when not bolstered by the support of stagehand or understudies helping achieve the visual effects. They are constantly in motion, rampaging across the stage, singing and swapping instruments to play Tim Dalling’s jolly songs. Jade Chan’s earnest Jim Hawkins and Amy Connachan’s Lean Jean Silver are an effective double act, always engaging even if some of the threat that should be present is dissipated.
Dalling is a pleasingly eccentric Ben Gunn, while TJ Holmes has excellent comic timing as the Laird, a chinless-wonder distillation of several of Stevenson’s characters.
swagger
Itxaso Moreno’s Billy Bones has the necessary swagger. The ebullient Dylan Read, the production’s movement lead, is fittingly at the heart of several of the most striking visual moments, whether as a decidedly Edinburgh Blind Pew with ludicrously long limbs, or operating the wonderful puffin puppet (designed by Julia Jeulin) that replaces Silver’s parrot.
Jade Chan (Jim) and Dylan Read (Puffin and Pew). Pic: Jess Shurte.
The puffin is only one of several puppets (made and directed by Ailsa Dalling and Sarah Wright) that add colour to a visually inventive production where there is always something new to catch the eye, whether it’s a slow-motion fight sequence (fight direction by Raymond Short) or the depiction of a storm. Colin Grenfell’s lighting and Parasol Wu’s sound design also add greatly to the spectacle.
wonderfully inventive
In the best possible way, this comes across as a piece of wonderfully inventive fringe theatre transplanted to a bigger stage. And if it doesn’t always manage to fill the space or time available, it has a creditable stab at it. As an introduction for young theatre-goers to just what imagination can bring to a stage, it would take some beating.
Running time: Two hours and 20 minutes (including one interval)
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Grindlay St, EH9 3AX
Thursday 28 November 2024 – Saturday 4 January 2025
Tues – Sat at 7.00 pm; Matinees Sat and daily from Tue 23 Dec at 2.00 pm; Suns 1.00 pm and 6.00 pm
Further details and tickets at Book here.
The cast of Treasure Island. Pic: Jess Shurte.
ENDS
