Treasure Island, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
The Lyceum Christmas show is a wonderful tradition. Take a classic tale, give it an Edinburgh flavour and a seasonal twist, sprinkle in some jokes and songs and people it with characters you might meet in the street.
Orkney based Duncan McLean has taken this formula and run with it – creating a rollicking, hilarious, life affirming reworking of Treasure Island full of fantastic songs, flights of fancy and genuinely rib -tickling dialogue.
We open in a home for retired pirates, with a cast of wrong’uns who are doing their best to lead a quiet life of tea and biscuits. But we sense that a whole heap of piratey mischief is rumbling under the surface – with the residents twitching and itching to break into a rowdy chorus of Fifteen Men On a Dead Man’s Chest…
Jim Hawkins, played by Jade Chan, tries to keep the inmates soothed with a bed-time story – which of course turns out to be Treasure Island, by our very own Robert Lewis Stevenson.
McLean incorporates Stevenson’s best bits – there’s the black spot, the curse, the treasure map, the terrifying storms and the haunted island. But he also adds some hugely entertaining local colour. Amy Conachan, aka Lean Jean Silver, has found a new form of piracy – selling designer pies to the hipsters of Leith. TJ Holmes, aka the Laird and Captain of the Hispaniola is a swashbuckling posho, who’s scared of water, sprinkles his language with fake Scottishisms and wants to pay his sailors the minimum wage.
Instead of a parrot, there’s a puffin, operated with wit and efficiency by Dylan Read. Itxaso Moreno doubles as doomed Billy Bones and a fiery quicksilver pirate while Tim Dalling does a fantastic comic turn as the crazy castaway Ben Gunn. The pirates are wild and unpredictable but oddly endearing –alive with spirit and vim.
There are heaps of instruments on and off stage. Electric guitar and bass, double bass, harmonium, hand bells, tubular bells, clarinet, organ. This multi-talented cast throw themselves into various musical formations – casually launching into catchy, witty and not at all corny rock and roll songs.
The set, by Alex Berry, who also designed the costumes, is also enjoyably loose. Ropes, ladders, and strings of lights are switched into different shapes – becoming a ship, a shore, a storm, a haunted forest and a lush green island. The clothes are funky and adaptable – with a punky hippy counterculture edge.
Wils Wilson’s direction is brilliantly inventive. There is always something going on, some game, or trick, or transformation. There are fights, ghosts, apparitions, harum-scarum chases, all brought together with adorable exuberance and a sense of irrepressible fun.
Stevenson’s original exhilarating tale, and cherry picked patches of his prose are allowed to shine – but Duncan McLean’s interpretation also sparkles with invention and originality. The jokes are genuinely funny, the dialogue is fresh and there are no lapses into sentimental cliché.
There’s a tremendous rousing finale and a catchy Christmas song which brings the whole audience together and ties up all the plot twists with a big festive bow. In the end we find ourselves part pirate, impulsive, imperfect, up for adventure. We have cheered, clapped and laughed to our hearts’ content.
One of the greatest things is hearing the squeals of laughter and delight from the children in the audience, who are just as gripped, amused and entertained as the rest of us. Some of them even had the foresight to dress as pirates. I think if I were to go again, I’d probably dress as a pirate as well.
Treasure Island runs at the Lyceum until January 4. Buy tickets here:
https://lyceum.org.uk/events/treasure-island#dates-and-times
