Treasure Island

Published Monday 26 November 2007 at 15:25 by Pat Ashworth

Birmingham Stage Company plays it straight and presents a Treasure Island immaculately faithful to Stevenson. These are not comic pirates. Long John Silver (Gavin Robertson) dispatches a man in cold blood by a cruel jab to the neck with his crutch support, and the crumpled body remains on stage at the interval until the safety curtain comes down.

Jackie Trousdale’s versatile set, with its ramps and hiding-places, doubles as the deck of the Hispaniola and the island itself. Ropes twist and unravel magically on the central mast to become the branches of a tree on Spyglass Hill, and the rigging becomes a forest of lianas under dappled lighting. Swashbuckling fights and atmospheric storms at sea all heighten the tension.

Young Jim Hawkins is no caricature of a Boys Own hero. Iain Ridley plays him convincingly and without a trace of piety as a lad who always does the decent thing. The moment when he finds the courage to shoot Israel Hands is pivotal as a rite of passage from boy to man. It’s a gripping plot but it demands concentration, and a young audience seized gratefully on the cheese-hungry Ben Gunn (Christopher Llewellyn) as a welcome bit of comic relief.