Piracy is a formidable ol’ career. So, it’s nice to see that even after the pages of Robert Louis Stevenson’s genre-defining tale, Treasure Island, have been closed, the story still has life for the likes of talented writers like Duncan McLean. Reliving the events of Stevenson’s tale, from the warmth and comfort of a home for retired pirates and buccaneers, the glittering embers of the Lyceum Theatre’s long-standing re-imaging of a Christmas tale are stoked once more as winter sets in.
A playground of imagination, dark yet warm woods capture the enchantment of theatre at its most honest, a portal to the world of storytelling. The riggings, ropes, trapdoors, and even the structure of the Lyceum stage are put to some of the venue’s finest use with Alex Berry’s design. It’s the sort of show which teases all of the senses; the audience clambers over the makeshift look-out posts or feels the breeze from the sail enswathing the more significant part of the stage. And it’s all captured in that 5 am glow of a Christmas morning twinkle by Colin Grenfell’s twilight-bottled lighting. But where the visuals and the initial tone of the production flutter with life, Treasure Island never strikes gold, finding itself with a fistful of unfulfilled promise and some tremendous talent lost to the shallows.
Structing the tale as a playful semi-autobiographical re-telling, minus some characters and insetting other elements, Jim and their mother have converted their Inn into the Admiral Benbow Home for Reformed Pirates, now filled with the rogues and rascals which terrorised the pages of Stevenson’s pages; a novel concept rich with possibility as the pirates are drawn to their old ways and symptoms of gold fever.
McLean’s Treasure Ialdn via Leith and Orkney centers less a Jim Hawkins thirsting for adventure and one concerned with the consequences of indulging in the pirate’s nostalgia fix – an engaging play-off but another element not fully explored. But under Wils Wilson’s direction, Jade Chan comes to life as a curious, though anxiously so, Jim – one as wide-eyed with wonder as they are worry - as the pirates flirt with their old ways. As much the protagonist of any version, Lean Jean Silver, the Lyceum’s take on the salty-seadog and best pal of Jim, is played with gusto and charm by Amy Conachan.
Taking on a couple of roles, from the genuinely unnerving, yet also hilarious, pirate Pew, Dylan Read takes flight with the evening’s most successful inclusion – a puffin in place of a parrot. Diving into the brine or soaring alongside the ship, the physical performance from Read, combined with Julia Jeulin’s puppet design, is just one of the sparks that demonstrates a piece of excellent theatre that needs some buffing up. Meanwhile, TJ Holmes, Itxaso Moreno, and composer Tim Dalling make the most of their larger-than-life comedic roles – filling in for a few notable absences by performing as if they were a ten-fold cast for some much-needed energy – the composition also doing its part to fill in for some of the missing voices, mixing sea shanties with some appreciative acto-musician performances.
As gorgeous as the show is, one which so beautifully demonstrates the magic of theatre, its structure falters. The aesthetic of the Lyceum Christmas show is very much in full wonder, but the edge, the distinctive twist that heralds these shows with such anticipation, never truly manifests. The sparks are there and shine bright when struck but soon fade; ‘X’ may mark the spot for these jewelled moments, but this Treasure Island is often digging in the wrong spots.
Treasure Island is at the Royal Lyceum until Saturday 4th January.