My full review of Treasure Island

                                                                                                                                                                                                                   By watching this show you get taken back to a time of excitement, pirates and treasure! The original Treasure Island was a book and was wrote by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883. It was adapted to be a play by Bryony Lavery for The National Theatre. The show was directed by Peter Rowe and was produced by Pieter Kroonenburg Julie Allan. I watched this production on The National Theatre’s YouTube channel, they streamed the show for a week so people could watch it in the comfort of their own homes and get the same experience.

The plot for the show is about a poor girl who finds a treasure map and sets of an adventure to find the treasure. The entire set for this show is based off an 18^th century ship and is constantly moving, changing the scene and location. You meet most of the main characters at the beginning of the show and get to know more about them as the show continues. Even though you meet most of them at the start there are surprising new characters throughout the show.

Characters

                                                               

 

• Jim Hawkins- Patsy Ferran
• Grandma- Gillian Hanna
• Bill Bones- Aidan Kelly
• Dr Livesly- Alexandra Maher
• Squire- Nick Fletcher
• Long John Silver- Arthur Darvill
• Benn Gunn- Joshua Jones

The director was Polly Findlay, the fight director was Bret Yount and the movement director was Jack Murphy. All of the characters were believable but Long John Silver was especially believable because at the start he acted nice and seemed like he was trying to be helpful but in reality he was the evillest character in the whole show. Also, you could hear all the characters clearly so they all had good projection. The characters were interesting to watch because it felt as if we were there with them searching for the treasure because they broke the 3^rd wall a lot making the audience fell as though they are part of the group.

The set designer was Lizzie Clachan and the lighting designer was Bruno Poet. The lighting throughout the show was quite dark which made it look eery, setting the right atmosphere for the audience and the characters. The props looked really realistic such as the swords they used and the map. The swords looked realistic in the fight because they didn’t break and the sound they made sounded real, the map looked old and worn out which made it realistic because most maps have been around for a while and have been used a lot. On the stage there was always enough room for the characters to move about and the set always worked for each scene even though they were in different settings. Costumes represented each character well, poor people wore older and more scruffy clothes, pirates had dirty clothes and richer people wore cleaner and posh clothes. Dramatic music was used during the show to build up the tension before an important moment happened and sound effects were used at the correct times such as things breaking.

-The beginning of the show was not as exciting as the rest for me because there was no hints to what was going to happen in the rest of the show. The middle was all about building up to the climax and getting to know more about the characters and seeing them set off on their adventure. The end was all about the resolution and the characters getting what they deserve, they made a happy ending because the audience love that. Overall I think the show was exciting and I would highly recommend it to people who like theatre or adventures.