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1. Norwich Theatre Royal

There are more photos from this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Treasure Island - Billy Bones/Israel Hands

- Fairfield Hall - Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon. Directed by Peter Clapham.

My second 'Treasure Island' in four months! Myself and Steve Wilsher were imported 'lock, stock and barrel' to re-create our epic Hands/O'Brien' fight for this production (the fight director being Derek Ware again), and I got to reprise my role as Billy Bones.

Our Long John Silver this time around was Frank Windsor...about which the least said the better. On the plus side, Louie the (Norwich Theatre Royal) parrot made a triumphant return.

This being a much more commercial affair than the Norwich production, dancers played both our (somewhat less than rugged) pirate crew and Ben Gunn's goats (!) who broke into an impromptu can-can at one point. I believe the musical accompaniment to this was the sound of Robert Louis Stevenson rotating in his grave at 33 rpm.

The commercial nature of the show meant, of course, that we had to suffer the huge egos and rather smaller talents of the usual complement of 'stars' such as Nicholas Smith (Are You Being Served) as Squire Trelawney, Ashley Knight as a rather too old and knowing Jim Hawkins, and Mark Wynter, whose rendition of 'If we only had love' as Dr.Livesey was about as far from Stevenson's original conception as you could get and the low point of the evening for all concerned! Oh well...

"...there are strong performances here, especially Jon Glentoran as Billy Bones..."