Treasure Island – Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

Writer and Director: Gari Jones

Treasure Island is a difficult story to adapt for the stage. As is often the case with quest narratives, there are incidents along the way but very little in terms of character development or the feeling of a satisfying story arc. Creation Theatre seeks to meet some of these challenges with a high energy production directed by Gari Jones featuring a hard working cast, a stylish design and lots of music.

It is a reworking of the 2015 original created for the North Wall theatre and is now presented in the round as a piece of family entertainment for the summer season. As is inevitable with this sort of staging, voices can sometimes be lost as the cast of five energetically seek to fill the space. As the run continues, the cast will no doubt grow more accustomed to the acoustics and how best to exploit them.

There is much to admire in this revival. Visually there are some great elements to David Spence’s flexible design. The costumes, in particular, stand out for their clever blending of period and punk aesthetics.

The real strength of the production is the cast. Hayley Murray is winningly naive in the pivotal role of Jim. Graeme Rose, Katherine Toy, Nicholas Osmond and Herb Cuanalo all play multiple roles through the piece and create vivid portrayals of each through strong accent work and varied physicality. It is proper ensemble playing and a credit to Creation’s continuing commitment to having a repertory company.

Where the problem with the production lies is in the script. At two hours including interval, it is too long and would work far better for younger audiences if it were eighty minutes long and played without an interval.

There is an over-reliance on direct to audience narration which is a fault with many novel adaptations. This tends to slow down the action and risks losing audience attention. In terms of humour, there are moments where the audience smile but overall it lacks enough good jokes for children and clever jokes for the adults.

The energy of the production is without doubt highly infectious and there is fun to be had. But a talented cast is not enough to hide a flawed script. Part of the issue is the nature of the source material, it is not an inherently theatrical story. Having said that, the script needs further refining to find more of the dramatic highs and lows necessary to deliver a true piece of family entertainment that can fully appeal to all generations.

Runs until 17 August 2024 and on tour