Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
It’s a rum old do down at Admiral Benbow’s Home for Reformed Pirates, where Duncan McLean’s new adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s swashbuckling romp first embarks. The seemingly washed up old sea dogs cared for by young Jim Hawkins band together to tell their story, as Jim, Lean Jean Silver and a puppet puffin set sail from Leith for the Orkney islands in search of buried booty.
Such is the playfully irreverent license taken by McLean in Wils Wilson’s rollickingly riotous production, set on Alex Berry’s galleon sized set of ropes, ladders and sails. What follows is a supremely daft take on Stevenson’s yarn that sees McLean tap into the ridiculous spirit of The Merry Mac Fun Co, the punky 1980s theatre troupe he co-founded, performed with and wrote for.
This is evident in some of the verbal riffs between the six actors on stage as well as some very silly song lyrics set to composer Tim Dalling’s Tom Waitsian junkyard musical stylings. Illustrated by some dazzling visual set pieces, the feel is of a comic strip come to life, with each character an exercise in cartoonish largesse who use household utensils to illustrate some of the little creatures that await them on their island caper.
Amy Conachan’s Lean Jean Silver leads her pirate crew with snarlingly duplicitous intent alongside Itxaso Moreno’s Billy Bones, while TJ Holmes’ posh boy Laird looks terminally out of his depth. Dylan Read operates Ailsa Dalling, Sarah Wright and Julia Jeulin’s puffin with off-kilter charm, while also making for a larger than life Pew.
Anchored by Jade Chan as an eminently sensible Jim, once they get to the island, X may mark the spot, but Dalling’s Ivor Cutler-like Ben Gunn has had other ideas while marooned that recall artist Bill Drummond’s own cash in hand island antics. All of which makes for a quick fire rites of passage that brings knockabout fun to Stevenson’s story in a way that makes it a delight to set sail alongside.
The Herald, December 3rd 2024
Ends
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