Treasure Island

Published Friday 30 November 2007 at 17:30 by Pat Ashworth

The cast got a standing ovation at what was to be the press night and the last performance of Treasure Island. But the audience response wasn’t just borne out of the emotion of the occasion. This was a robust show and it deserved to run.

It’s earthed in sea shanties, sung out with gusto and a collective voice that gives real solidarity to the seafaring men. Ben Roberts relishes the role of a hard-drinking, lip-curling villain in Billy Bones and a morally upright English commander in Captain Smollett. Daniel Hinchcliffe is wholly credible as the vulnerable and eager Jim Hawkins and Glyn Kerslake both charms and chills as the manipulative Silver.

James Head makes a buffoon of Squire Trelawney, who is playing at being an admiral, but it’s Gregory Gudgeon’s Ben Gunn who romps away with the comedy. He has grown so gloriously mad that he talks to a coconut with a painted face that dangles from his waist. This is a very physical show, where the constant reconfiguration of boxes and benches on the revolve provides plenty of action in creating rowing-boats and wharves, ship and stockade. The gunfire is loud and the battles big and mighty. It’s a cracking good yarn.