India Farnham pays a visit to the Bristol Old Vic’s joyful new Christmas production, Treasure Island: A New Musical Adventure, and reports back on this gloriously Bristolian seafaring spectacle. Production images by Johan Persson.
Now, generally if a bearded man in an Adidas tracksuit approaches you in a Bristol pub threatening to tell you a story, I’d advise you to avoid. However, if you happen to find yourself transported to The Bristol Storytelling Festival this Christmas, I’d recommend hearing the guy out. He might just take you on the swashbuckling, seafaring, timber-shivering adventure of your wildest dreams…
Let me explain. The Storytelling Festival in question here is the modern-day opening to The Bristol Old Vic’s new blockbuster Christmas offering for 2025: Treasure Island: A New Musical Adventure, inspired of course by Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel. The story-telling guy in question is Colin Leggo, one of a cast of eight actor-musicians, including Bristolian legend, comedian and presenter Jayde Adams, who are poised to transport you back in time to that very same pub in the mid-eighteenth century. Here, you’ll meet your First Mate: the thrill-seeking daydreamer Jim Hawkins, played by the sparkling Adryne Caulder-James, a 13-year-old girl with a seemingly inexplicable passion for the stormy seas and a growing frustration with her mother’s protectiveness: “There’s a whole world outside of Bristol, Mum, and I’m not talking about Bath!”.
Her ticket out of her humdrum life of sticky floors and pouring pints comes in the form of a mysterious visitor in a tricorne hat, who enters the tavern looking for a place to rest, and ends up bestowing Jim with his most treasured (pun intended) possession: a map showing the location of the great Captain Flint’s riches. Of course, there’s only one appropriate course of action for Jim here. She says a tearful goodbye to her good old mum, locates a ship with a crew of quirky and curious characters and sets sail across the seven seas…
Ships ahoy! There’s a smorgasbord of theatrical gifts in store for you on this journey, including a gorgeous, completely realistic set, but surely one of the shiniest is the production’s musical numbers, with lyrics by the brilliant Pippa Cleary. These aren’t all your traditional, hook-laden pantomime tunes, but longer, melodically meandering, sea-shanty inspired numbers, an understandable creative decision when considering the immense musical talent of this small-but-mighty cast, who all play their instruments live on stage. That’s not to say there aren’t some earworms in the mix (I will be singing “on the Hispanoooliaaaa!” for the foreseeable) but that the songs go beyond being an insight into the character in question’s motivations, leaning instead into celebrating the narrative riches of Stevenson’s maritime universe. Oh, and there’s also a song about talking coconuts. And it’s bloody brilliant.
Keep your eyes peeled for a couple of fabulous, meticulously-choreographed fight scenes as guitars, trumpets and clarinets double as oars, ropes and swords. Director Paul Foster does well to add some real drama into proceedings, breaking up the yo-ho-hoing with some moments of real tension. There are even a couple of genuinely good scares, leaning into the spooky, shadowy corners of the Island. Everyone knows the real terror of a Christmas show is the audience participation, but fear not – Treasure Island doesn’t demand much of its viewers, only engaging us in some polite singsong at the interval. As Adams points out, “this isn’t The Hippodrome.” Speaking of Adams, she is of course a brilliant comic relief, and her aforementioned, Cast Away-style coconuts number is a proper highlight. I’ll be looking forward to seeing her in more comedic stage productions, especially if she gets more opportunities to take the mickey out of The Suspension Bridge: “why anyone would want to go from Clifton to the arse-end of nowhere beats me.”
Rising above (literally, in some cases – this is a very practical set with all sorts of levels and ladders) the music and the gravelly tones of this Bristolian pirate crew is the voice of the truly brilliant Adryne Caulder-James as Jim Hawkins. Her voice, both speaking and singing, is as clear and bright as a diamond, reflecting her boundless ambition. As Jim she’s kind, curious, and just the right amount of naïve. She’s one to watch.
What delights me most of all about Treasure Island is that this isn’t a production that can simply be plucked out of this theatre and re-inserted in an entirely different city with a couple of re-worked, placeholder gags. This is a musical adventure that is born and bred in Bristol; indeed, the Admiral Benbow Inn in Stevenson’s novel was apparently inspired by King Street’s very own Llandoger Trow pub, which you can see across the road as you leave the theatre. And of course, in classic Bristol Old Vic style, the Island is for everyone: “men, women, and everyone in-between”. One can only hope the world will follow suit.
Treasure Island: A New Musical Adventure is on until 10 January 2026. Tickets here.
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