REVIEW: Treasure Island, Headgate Theatre, Colchester Fringe ✭✭✭

Guest reviewer Sparky Backman Juliff reviews Treasure Island, A Musical Misadventure In Concert.

Treasure Island

Headgate Theatre, Colchester Fringe Festival

3 Stars

Colchester Fringe Website

Treasure Island is a musical misadventure, full of pirates, hidden treasures and catchy songs. This show is an adaptation of the novel ‘Treasure Island’ by Robert Louis Stevenson (1883). It takes us on an adventurous journey, starting with the sudden death of an escapee pirate and a hidden treasure map is found, this leads to young Jim and Dr Livesey embarking the ship and crew that Admiral Trelawney successfully manage to get together to set sail to an action filled hunt to find the treasure on a faraway island. The evil pirate, Silver, had made it on board and was pretending to be a good asset to the crew, especially to young and innocent Tim who he took under his wing but later turned out to be an imposter and betrayed the rest of the crew. Almost all the actors played more than one character which adds a nice variety of personalities. Although I loved the brilliant acting and singing, I felt it wasn't in the right venue as I could not see the props that were on the floor because it was too low down, if i was in the front row I would have been able to see everything. The age suitability was 8+ but I personally would have had it as 12+ just because of the content; murder and alcohol. Other than that, the performance itself was amazing, the singing was beautiful but my absolute favourite part was definitely Joseph playing the part of Annie!