Audiences expecting a sombre retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island will find themselves delightfully mistaken the moment the curtain rises on Dan Neidermyer’s buoyant stage adaptation.
The version now being staged by the young performers of actOUT! at the Registry Theatre doesn’t just wink at pirate clichés – it fires them from a cannon, tosses them overboard, and invites the crowd to join the mutiny. What emerges is a gleeful pantomime that treats the classic tale with affectionate irreverence.
Neidermyer’s script leans wholeheartedly into the panto tradition: broad comedy, audience participation, and characters who seem perfectly aware they’re in a play. The result is a production that feels less like a dusty adventure yarn and more like a seaside holiday show where the pirates are as likely to break into a jig as they are to brandish a cutlass.
