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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
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The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
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I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
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Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
Fiona Mountford's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Sean Holmes.
Cast: Keith Allen, Michael Legge, Tony Bell, Paul Brennen, John Lightbody, Dermot Kerrigan, James Atherton, Mark Bagnall, Matt Costain, Estella Daniels, Branwell Donaghey, Howard Gossington, James Lailey, Mark Theodore, Sharlene Whyte
Description: Ken Ludwig's stage version of Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure tale, with Keith Allen making his West End debut as Long John Silver. Directed by Sean Holmes.
Trains: Tube: Piccadilly Circus 
Phone: 0870400 0626
Website: www.trh.co.uk/contactus.php
Email: boxoffice@trh.co.uk
Legging it: Keith Allen as Long John Silver
Daddy's girl: Lily Allen at the Groucho club after the show
Proud son? Keith Allen and actor son Alfie arrive at the Groucho Club
The arrival of Robert Louis Stevenson in the West End marks an early beginning to the season of festive family entertainment. Pundits predict that, credit crunch or not, it’s going to be a bumper year for theatrical escapism. Nonetheless, parents down to their last few pieces of eight should think twice before spending them on such an underwhelming account of piratical swashbuckling, which even Keith Allen’s anarchic spirit fails to perk up.
Allen’s Long John Silver at least injects some life and colour into the largely inert proceedings, arriving on the scene at Bristol Docks with a huge wooden prosthesis, mechanical parrot, jaunty headgear and gold hooped earring.
You feel that Allen is itching to let rip on all this prototype Boys’ Own adventure nonsense — there are just two women on offer here, in the tiniest of supporting roles — but he is constrained by the uncertain tone of Sean Holmes’s direction. Like an ill-rigged mainsail, the production strains in a number of directions simultaneously, tacking now towards straight drama, now comedy. Even when mutiny strikes the good ship Hispaniola, there is a dreary sense that nothing is actually at stake.
It’s easy to forget how dense and, often, convoluted, Stevenson’s original text is and Ken Ludwig’s adaptation certainly doesn’t stint on narrative confusion. It’s clear enough that young Jim Hawkins (Michael Legge) is plucked from a quiet life at the Admiral Benbow Inn because of a map purporting to indicate buried treasure over the seas, but the ever-shifting on-ship allegiances are much harder to follow.
Lizzie Clachan’s design involves an impressive amount of rigging strewn around the stage and a platform for three musicians to be wheeled about on, but dismally tenebrous lighting doesn’t do much for the half-hearted video projections.
Legge starts off decently, giving Jim a wide-eyed innocence, yet crucially fails to suggest a boy hardening into manhood through a series of challenges and betrayals from Silver’s ambiguous surrogate father figure. In the supporting cast, Tony Bell makes a pleasingly bluff Captain Smollett and John Lightbody stops Squire Trelawney just short of all-out pantomime camp. Even so, this Treasure is chocolate coins rather than real gold.
Booking to 28 February. Box office: www.treasureislandtheplay.com and 0845 481 1870.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
we took our grandparents and 7 yr old son for a christmas treat..this has to be the worst performance ive ever seen..it was dark..poorly acted...unsuitable for children(they took up 50% of the xmas audience)...just simply appauling...complete wast of money and a quality theatre..i do hope the west end learns that if the theatre land is to survive then awful ,cheap productions like this shoud be cancelled on first night!..be warned...its rubbish,as was the whole cast and production.
- Mike, london
It is the most amazing play! Ken Ludwig does a brilliant adaption of treasure Island, and you should definitely go to see it. Kieth Allen is fantastic too. You'll love it!
- Olivia, London
my dog could of acted any of those off the stage except Ben Gun and
its been dead 6 months
- Anon, market harborough
In view of this supposed new role for Keith Allen following a relatively quiet period for him, I can't help wondering if he has some involvement with the piracy matters off Somalia. It would make a lot of sense.
- Minos, London
Ham all the way!
- Dee, Herts
