Treasure Island

Treasure Island - REP Insight

Contents

Introduction

Synopsis

Characters

Interview with Bryony Lavery

Interview with Phillip Breen

Model box designs

Bringing a Novel to life in the English classroom

Treasure Island

Introduction

Welcome to this REP Insight on Treasure Island, a thrilling, swashbuckling voyage

that will transport you to a far away, tropical island. This breathtaking, modern
adaptation by Bryony Lavery (A Christmas Carol) retains all the adventure and
excitement of Robert Louis Stevenson's timeless classic, but proves that everyone
deserves an adventure.

When pirates ransack Grandma Hawkins' inn, her fearless granddaughter, Jim
unearths a treasure map and knows she must follow it to uncover its fortune.

Gathering a motley crew of sailors and pirates, Jim sets sail on the
mighty Hispaniola and they seek out a lost island where riches await.

The ship's charming cook, Long John Silver quickly befriends Jim. As they follow the
stars to the island, it seems Long John is not all he seems. Will Jim and her friends
track down the buried treasure, or will they lose their lives in the process?

These resources contain background information on the play, the company and the
creative team, suggested activities and an interview with the director and writer. We
hope you find them useful.
Treasure Island

Synopsis

Act 1

The Benbow Inn

It is a bitter, frosty winter and both of Jim Hawkins’ parents have died, leaving her
with her grandmother at the Admiral Benbow Inn, in Black Cove. On the very coldest
of days a mysterious figure arrives with a heavy chest. He introduces himself as Billy
Bones and makes Jim call him ‘Captain’. He deputises Jim to keep a watch-out for a
one-legged man, and to let no thing at all near that chest.This one-legged man
quickly becomes a frightful figure in Jim’s imagination and haunts her constantly.

At the Benbow Inn we meet Squire Trelawney, the local landowner, and Dr. Livesey,
the local doctor. One evening, Billy Bones threatens the patrons of the Benbow. Just
when it seems Bones is going to harm the Squire, the quick-thinking doctor
intervenes and threatens Bones with the full weight of the law. Bones reluctantly
steps away. Bones’ behaviour frightens the Benbow’s regulars away, all except the
drunken Mrs. Crossley and her ever-present hen. When Bones’ money runs out, Jim
and Grandma try to reason with him, but Bones continues to drink and Jim and
Grandma go hungry.

One day, the second stranger arrives and demands to see Billy Bones. He is Black
Dog. Jim and Grandma eavesdrop as Bones and Black Dog talk about things
strange to Jim and Grandma. Black Dog tells Bones that all of their old crew are
nearby and are very angry with Bones. Black Dog demands ‘Flint’s Fist’ and if
Bones’ refuses to comply, it’ll ‘be the black spot for you’. Bones refuses and a fight
ensues. Black Dog flees, enraged. As Bones tries to gather his belongings to run
away, he has a stroke.

Dr. Livesey arrives just in time saves Bones’ life. When he demands rum from Jim,
she uses his desperation to ask questions about the various mysteries she’s heard
about through Bones. He tells her of an island on which someone called ‘Flint’ buried
treasure. He tells her of six dead sailors. He tells her of the Black Spot! A third
stranger arrives, a terrifying figure, all in black and blind with a long cane which he
tap tap taps. This is Blind Pew. Blind Pew forces Jim to lead him to Bones. He gives
Bones one last chance and when Bones’ refuses; Blind Pew gives him a piece of
paper with a Black Spot on it. Bones collapses and dies. Realising that Bones must
have something these terrible people want, Jim and Grandma check in Bones’ chest.
Inside they find a pile of useless old papers. But in a secret lid Jim finds a huge
cache of coins. Suddenly, they hear Blind Pew’s tapping and have to hide.
Treasure Island

Suddenly the Benbow fills with figures disguised and all in black, amongst them Blind
Pew and Black Dog. They ransack the inn, looking for Flint’s Fist, whatever that is,
but when they hear a signal whistle from their boat, they scarper empty-handed,
running Blind Pew through with his own cane as they leave.

Jim and Grandma emerge and are joined by Squire Trelawney and Dr. Livesey. As
they try to make sense of the raid they happen upon a series of clues. They realise
that this gang must be the pirate crew of the famous and bloodthirsty Captain Flint.
An old account book in the chest tells them that Billy Bones was Flint’s firs-mate. The
crew were pursuing Bones because he had stolen Flint’s chest, and with it Flint’s
Fist. But what is Flint’s Fist? Just when they think the mystery of Flint’s Fist will
remain unsolved, they realise that the old papers must be Flint’s Fist. They manage
to rescue them just as Grandma is about to use them to light the fire.

Amongst the papers is the map of an island. Written on the back is a ditty, which the
Squire works out must be a series of clues to find hidden treasure. He decides to fit
out a ship, get together a crew, including Jim and the doctor, and go in search of this
treasure. After much argument, Grandma agrees. The doctor expresses fears that
the Squire is too much of a blabbermouth to be safe.

Bristol

In Bristol, we learn that the Squire has bought a ship, the Hispaniola. He has hired a
Captain called Captain Smollett. He has also brought some people from his own
estate with him: Red Ruth, Lucky Mickey, Job Anderson, and Silent Sue. However,
other than his own people, the Squire’s had a lot of trouble hiring a crew, except for
one particularly forgettable able-seaman by the name of Grey. Everyone seems to
be scared of something.

The Squire gets talking to a friendly stranger on the Bristol pier. The man has some
wise advice for the Squire about keeping his secrets to himself, and the Squire
thanks him before revealing all of the important secrets about the voyage. The
friendly stranger tries to think of some appropriate crewmembers for the Squire and
by sheer chance some happen to arrive. These people bear an uncanny
resemblance to those dark figures we met ransacking the Benbow. They are,
Kiligrew the Kind, Dick the Dandy, Joan the Goat, Israel Hands, Black Cat (Black
Dog in disguise!), and George Badger. All the Squire needs now is a cook, and when
he hears that his new friend is himself a cook, he convinces him to come along. As
the Squire boards ship we learn that this kind stranger is actually a one-legged man
called Long John Silver who has a pet parrot.
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Aboard the Hispaniola

As the Hispaniola sets sail, we join Jim in the Captain’s cabin where Captain
Smollett is angrily complaining about the voyage. He has heard they are going after
treasure. He demands that they exert caution. The doctor agrees and promises to
hide the map somewhere safe. Smollett sends Jim down to the galley to help the
cook.

Down in the galley, Jim meets Long John Silver and his parrot Captain Flint. When
Long John Silver stabs his wooden leg with a kitchen knife, Jim realises that this
one-legged man must be the one-legged nightmare Bones spoke of. However,
though Jim is as careful as she knows she must be, Long John isn’t frightening at all.
He is kind and funny and generous with his time and with his food. He teaches her
all about how the ships works.

One night, a great storm threatens the Hispaniola, and when Jim is nearly washed
overboard, Long John saves her life. The clouds clear to reveal a starry night sky.
On the deck of the ship, Long John teaches Jim how to navigate by the stars, and to
always know where in the world she is.

One evening, as they near the island, Jim decides she wants one of the doctor’s
apples. She finds that the doctor has hidden the map in the apple barrel, but as she
grabs it, the pirate crew appear. Hidden in the barrel she overhears the drowning of
Job Anderson in a barrel of brandy, and then Long John convincing Lucky Mickey
and Red Ruth to turn to the dark side. So Long John is the one-legged nightmare
after all! Jim’s heart is broken.

When they spy land Jim takes her chance to escape and tell her landlubber friends
what’s happened. The Captain hatches a plan to trick the pirates onto the island
where they will be stranded and forced into surrender. As Long John thinks Jim is on
his side, Jim will keep the map. The Captain gathers the entire crew together and
just as their plan seems to be succeeding; Jim lets slip that she knows the truth
about Long John. A huge fight ensues in which the map is stolen by the parrot. Red
Ruth rejoins the goodies. Jim climbs the rigging to get the map back from the parrot,
but as she reaches the top, Long John tells Killigrew to shoot Jim. We go to blackout
as Killigew’s gun fires.
Treasure Island

Act 2

On Skeleton Island

Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, Silent Sue, Red Ruth and Grey are tied up. Long
John Silver and his pirate crew torture the goodies and demand to know where the
map and Jim are. Their ignorance angers Long John and he leaves Killigew and
Black Dog to guard them while the others go looking for Jim. Black Dog and Killigew,
baking in the sun, drink rum to comfort themselves.

On another part of the island, we join a soaking-wet Jim. She has managed to
escape the pirates and has swum ashore. Thinking her friends captured or dead, she
despairs. After a strange glooping sound, the strange face of Ben Gunn appears. He
is the scrawny cabin on the Walrus and one of the six that Billy Bones’s told Jim had
been killed, and who Flint had forced to help bury the treasure. Jim learns that Long
John had helped Captain Flint kill five other members of the crew but that Ben Gunn
had managed to escape through a system of tunnels under the island. Buoyed by
this news Jim decides to seek out his friends and find a way home. Ben Gunn
teaches her how to use the tunnels. You just dive into them.

Back in the scorching heat Killigrew and Black Dog are now drunk and asleep. It is
revealed that the pirates had forgotten to tie up the forgettable Grey, so he retrieves
the doctor’s pistol and shoots the manacles off just in time to get away from the
returning Silver. Angry at finding their captives gone and their supplies with them, the
pirates try a mutiny against Silver. When Silver manages to kill the giant Killigrew,
the mutiny is finished before it has had a chance to begin.

We rejoin our friends as they set up camp somewhere else. Just as the doctor finds
some water, they hear a glooping sound and Jim and Ben Gunn emerge from the
tunnels. Happily reunited, Jim explains who Ben Gunn is and they celebrate
regaining the upper hand. Red Ruth raises the union jack in celebration but suddenly
falls, struck down by a flying blade. Ben Gunn flees in terror at the idea of seeing
Long John again. Red Ruth dies in the doctor’s arms. Long John arrives to make a
truce with our friends, but when they refuse, Silver signals his crew to shoot the
Captain. As the Captain dies, Jim realises that their only chance at survival is to
rescue the Hispaniola. When no one supports her idea, she sets out on her own.

On the other side of the island Ben Gunn emerges terrified. Some careful reasoning
makes him realise that he has the upper hand on Silver because Silver thinks Ben
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Gunn is dead. We see Ben Gunn hatching the beginnings of a plan as he once more
disappears into the island.

Jim arrives back onto the Hispaniola ready to bravely rescue it only to find Israel
Hands guarding the ship. Israel Hands refuses to comply with Jim’s demands but
accidentally blows himself up, leaving Jim in charge of the Hispaniola. Jim summons
up all of her seafaring knowledge and bravely sails the ship safely to anchor.Jim
returns to her friends’ camp to tell them her wonderful news only to find Long John
and his pirate crew waiting for her. Long John tells Jim that the Squire and the
Doctor have deserted her and given the pirates the map. Shocked and appalled, Jim
decides to become a pirate.

The Treasure Hunt

As the only one who can read, Jim helps the pirates read the clues on the map. A
series of clues leads them to a hidden trap door. Once opened a ladder takes them
down into a cave with tunnels leading off in all directions. As the others disappear
down the tunnels, Long John reveals to Jim that he is planning on killing every single
one of them. If Jim will help him, they’ll share the treasure between just the two of
them. Imagine what she can buy for Grandma? At the mention of Grandma, Jim
comes to herself and decides to double-cross Long John.When the pirates return
empty-handed from exploring the tunnels, they once more turn on Silver. Silver
descends into the cave and once they’re all gathered, Jim demands at gunpoint that
they all surrender. Silver’s parrot grabs the gun out of Jim’s hand and things are
looking very dark again when suddenly a frightening voice is heard. It is the ghost of
the real Captain Flint and he demands that his crew kill Long John Silver. However
we can see that it is really the Squire using a conch shell to disguise his voice. When
the Squire almost ruins everything, Ben Gunn appears and pretends to be a ghost
version of himself. He leads the pirates away to their treasure. Our friends appear
and are reunited with Jim. We hear from the doctor that the abandonment of the map
to Silver was all part of Ben Gunn’s brilliant plan to capture the pirates. We hear the
pirates crashing in the tunnels behind, desperate for their treasure. However, the
tunnels are actually all a trap. The lid collapses and all of the pirates are killed.

The Journey Home

Thinking themselves trapped on the island our friends despair, until Jim reveals that
she has rescued the ship. They all sail home, triumphant. Back at the Benbow, Jim is
reunited with Grandma.
Treasure Island

Characters

The Benbow Inn

Jim Hawkins
The hero of our tale, 14 year old Jim Hawkins is an orphan living with her Grandma
at the Benbow Inn, in Black Cove. The same winter her parents die, her life is turned
upside down by the arrival of mystery and adventure. Frightening and exciting in
equal measure, Jim jumps at the chance to explore the world and to try to find
herself while she does it. Without real parents in her life, Jim looks for role models.
She finds herself captivated by Long John Silver. A man totally unlike anyone she’s
ever known, he is kind to her, treats her like an adult, and teaches her the most
amazing things she’s ever learnt. The revelation that Long John is really a devious
liar breaks her heart. She is smarter and cannier than any of the devious pirates she
encounters, and braver than her own friends from Black Hill Cove. Her world is
shaken when she is made to believe that her friends have betrayed her, and for a
short time she becomes a pirate. The thought of her beloved Grandma at home at
the Benbow snaps her out of this terrible mistake though and she once more faces
down great danger for the sake of her morals.

Grandma Hawkins
Since Jim’s parents died, Grandma has been running the Benbow Inn with Jim. She
loves Jim dearly, but doesn’t quite realise how hard she works her granddaughter.
Grandma Hawkins is very good at selling to her loyal customers, but not hugely
successful at getting them to pay their bills. She and Jim are often hungry. Her pride
and joy is her extraordinary chair. At its destruction, she is heartbroken. A deeply
moral woman, Grandma refuses to take more than is rightfully hers even when she’s
looking Billy Bones’ gold right in the face. Grandma is a source of constant love and
inspiration to Jim, who thinks about her always on their voyage. Grandma is Jim’s
moral compass.

Mrs. Crossley
The most loyal regular of the Benbow Inn, Mrs. Crossley’s favourite tipple is a
Ladies’ Delight. She is always to be seen with her great big church bag, inside
Treasure Island

which, we learn is her laying hen. Mrs. Crossley is Welsh, and has a fully developed
beard. She plays a crucial role when Jim and Grandma send her to go and get help,
and she successfully retrieves the Squire and the Doctor. This does lead to directly
to a falling-out between Mrs. Crossley and Grandma Hawkins however.

Black Hill Cove

Squire Trelawney
The Squire is Black Hill Cove’s most important fellow, a landowner and employer of
many of the locals we meet. It is the Squire’s financial power and ambition for
adventure and gold that enables the treasure voyage to happen. It is also his inability
to keep a secret that lets Long John Silver know all about it and get his own crew
aboard ship. The Squire doesn’t take to the sea, complaining about the sea always
moving and about how wet it is. On the island, the Squire’s foolish English pride
leads directly to Red Ruth’s death, and he is deeply shaken by this. During the
treasure hunt he is deputised to do the ghostly voice of Captain Flint, nearly messing
it up before Ben Gunn rescues the day. In typical Squire fashion, when it seems as
though they’ll have to live on the island indefinitely, his Squirely instinct rises up and
he sketches out a plan for island life that bears uncanny resemblance to life in Black
Cove.

Doctor Livesey
The doctor leaves behind his practise in Black Hill Cove to go on the treasure
voyage. He and the Squire have known each other for many, many years and an
adventure with his old friend excites him. The doctor charges himself with keeping
Jim safe, and this is his raison d’être for much of the story. Livesey is not a natural
sailor, suffering seasickness in spite of her many gruesome medical encounters on
board. A complicated moral character, when Livesey thinks he has been responsible
for Jim’s death, he goes into a spiral of depression which is only alleviated by the
safe-return of Jim.

Red Ruth
Squire Trelawney’s plough woman is characterised by her constant hunger and by
her bright red hair. Her catchphrase is: ‘My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut’.
She says this any time she’s hungry. She is a real landlubber, not at all equipped for
life at sea. Her brief betrayal and move to the bad during the apple barrel scene is
primarily motivated by the possibility that she might never eat a pie again. When she
comes back to the good, she fights valiantly. Her death on Skeleton Island is a
heartbreaking event that profoundly affects the Squire and Silent Sue, who is Red
Ruth’s best friend.
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Lucky Mickey
The luckiest man in Black Cove, Lucky Mickey is one of Squire Trelawney’s people.
A seagull poos on his head in Bristol harbour and this seems like a very good omen
to him. On board ship he takes a keen interest in Dr. Livesey’s surgery, but when
push comes to shove he is easily convinced into joining Long John Silver and his
pirate colleagues. He might best be described as opportunist. As happy on the bad
side as on the good, he takes to piracy extremely quickly. He is an extremely adept
swordsman and not afraid of violence; he beats both the Captain and Squire
Trelawney with his lucky cosh. His luck eventually runs out when that very same
cosh helps cause the collapse that kills him in the treasure cave.

Job Anderson
A sweet and simple native of Black Hill Cove, Job Anderson’s wife is not too keen on
his sea-adventure. Mrs. Anderson has experienced Job drunk a few too many times
and demands that he drink only lemonade aboard ship. Job Anderson never got
used to sleeping in hammocks at sea, or as he called them, ‘These fancy floating
sleeping beds!’ Job Anderson’s life is cut short when he refuses to join the mutiny
against Captain Smollett and the Squire. In a sad twist of fate he is drowned in a
barrel of brandy. He thought of his wife till the very end.

Silent Sue
Unable to speak, Silent Sue communicates only through enormous grins. A regular
of the Benbow Inn, Silent Sue is best friends with Red Ruth. She is delighted by the
prospect of going to sea, particularly by the enormity of it all. A landlubber, Sue gets
herself into scrapes at sea, including being lifted up by her ankle, to the dismay of
Black Dog. Loyal to the good side, she never wavers. Her silence is broken only
when she witnesses the death of her friend Red Ruth, and from that point onwards
her volubility is such that Dr. Livesey has to tell her to ‘Shut up!’

The Walrus Crew

Billy Bones
The first mystery that meets Jim Hawkins in our story, Billy Bones is a weathered
and tattooed man of the sea who demands to be called Captain. His arrival at the
Benbow is the catalyst for all that follows. He always carries a heavy sea-chest with
him and drinks constantly. Haunted by the singing of a ghostly choir in his head,
Bones seems terrified by something or someone that might be coming for him.
These terrors are transferred directly to Jim who is himself haunted by those same
visions. Bones’ endless drinking of grog, and his constant terror lead him to a near-
fatal stroke, and when he is delivered the dreaded Black Spot, he dies. We learn that
Bones is in fact the former first-mate on the Walrus, Captain Edward Flint’s pirate
ship. He has been on the run from his former crew-members since Flint’s death after
he fled with Flint’s chest.
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Black Dog
Black Dog is probably Long John Silver’s most loyal follower. He is sent to Billy
Bones early in the story to try to convince him to give up the map, and proves
himself a fine (and dirty) fighter when the two come to blows. He disguises himself
as Black Cat in order to avoid detection on board the Hispaniola, (and because cats
are lucky on ship). While aboard ship he acts as boatswain. On Skeleton Island
Black Dog, along with Killigrew, is responsible for the escape of their prisoners when
the two get drunk and fall asleep. He is extremely lucky to avoid the same fate as
Killigrew, but eventually goes the same way as his colleagues when he greedily
scrambles about for Flint’s treasure.

Blind Pew
A terrifying figure, Blind Pew wears all-black and carries a long and sharp cane
which he uses to lead him and as a weapon. His arrival and subsequent delivery of
the Black Spot lead directly to Bones’ death. When he returns with the rest of the
Walrus crew to search the Benbow for Flint’s Fist, his desperate attempts to keep his
former crew searching leads to his eventual death at the hands of Killigrew.

Long John Silver

Long John Silver is a handsome pirate and a very skilled ship’s cook. He has
leveraged some of his power and influence over people using that particular gift.
Mercurial and enigmatic, he can be whatever he needs to be to achieve his goal. He
can charm the Squire into hiring him and his crew; he can make Jim fall in love with
him; he can convince goodies to turn bad. Once he has killed his own Captain Flint,
he takes over as de facto leader of the Walrus Crew. When Jim meets Ben Gunn on
the island we hear that Silver uses friendship to get what he needs from people. He
is also a brutal and ruthless man willing to kill at the drop of a hat. He is personally
responsible for the deaths of two innocents and one of his own crew during the
course of the play, and shows no remorse whatsoever. If he’d had his way, Jim
would certainly have been killed. To the very last moment, his one goal is bright,
shiny gold, and he’ll do anything to get it.

Captain Flint
Silver’s parrot is as old as he is, and probably older. There is something uncanny
about Flint. He doesn’t only speak but seems also to understand and think like a
person. He also can tell how frightening he is. He is adept physically, being able to
steal maps and knock guns from hands. Like all of the pirates, he is after gold, and
will even mutiny against Silver if need be. Captain Flint has been known to steal food
from the galley.

Joan the Goat

A terrible accident in a huge ea-battle led to half of Joan’s forehead being replaced
with a stew-pot lid. This operation gave her her weapon of choice, the head-butt,
which is always accompanied by a ‘Dush!’ However, ever since the operation she’s
Treasure Island

behaved half like a woman, half like a goat. She is prone to crippling headaches,
particularly when she gets angry. Along with Dick the Dandy, she drowns Job
Anderson in a barrel of brandy. Although a loyal follower of Long John Silver’s, she is
willing to mutiny if it means she’s more likely to get want she wants; treasure!

Dick the Dandy

Dick the Dandy is exactly that: a dandy. At any given time, he is more likely to be
concerned about the state of his outfit than anything else. He is extremely well-
equipped with blades of all sorts, and is an expert in the use of them. He is also a
very high-quality mender of clothes and is seen to repair Captain Smollett’s frock-
coat. He is also a ruthless pirate who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Along
with Joan the Goat, he has a personal hand in the drowning of Job Anderson and is
the first to suggest the mutiny against Long John Silver.

Killigrew the Kind

A mountain of a man, Killigrew is a skilled getter-of-meat while at sea. His ability in
this regard is very useful given the poor diet seamen experienced on long voyages.
On one famous occasion he caught an albatross. However he uses those same
hands for more devious purposes, as a killer! At the end of act 1 it is Killigrew who
fires the shot that so nearly kills Jim as she climbs the rigging. When Long John
Silver leaves Killigew and Black Dog to keep guard over the prisoners in the second
act, Killigrew is the unlucky one that has to pay for the mistake when he gets a knife
in the back.

George Badger
Impatient, short-tempered and spoilt, George Badger is always ready to complain
that something’s ‘Not fair!’ However he is also fickle, so when things go well it’s
‘Great!’ Badger has the misfortune to have to spend time acting as a kind of valet to
Squire Trelawney on board the Hispaniola. This includes fielding the kind of absurd
questions that only a landlubber would ask. When the mutiny against Long John
arises, it is George Bader who Dick suggests for a new leader. However Badger’s
fickleness is on show again when the threat of violence against him leads him to go
straight back to Silver. He dies along with his fellow crew while digging for gold.

Israel Hands
A clumsy Brazilian who apparently speaks no English, the Squire has grave doubts
about the hiring of Hands. However his lucky medal (and the fact that the Squire had
a mother too!) convinces him that Hands might be good to have along. He is seen
always to be smoking a pipe. Once the Hispaniola reaches Skeleton Island, Hands is
put in charge of the Hispaniola. When Jim comes to rescue the ship, she encounters
Hands smoking his pipe against a barrel of gunpowder. In a shocking turn of events,
Hands reveals he can speak English but chooses not to because it’s an extremely
ugly language. Hands’ luck runs out when he throws a match into the barrel of
gunpowder and is blown to smithereens in a clumsy and ironic twist.
Treasure Island

Ben Gunn
Ben Gunn is the former cabin-boy on the Walrus. He and five other shipmates were
taken ashore on Skeleton Island to bury Flint’s treasure. He is the only survivor of
those six, escaping into a hidden tunnel system under the island. Three years on the
island has driven him a little bit silly, and he is often to be seen engaged in multiple
conversations with different parts of himself. One of those characters is extremely
fond of cheese. When Jim meets him she discovers that Long John Silver had
groomed him in much the same way he’d groomed her. During the burying of the
treasure it was Ben Gunn, the only person on board who could read and write, who
writes the clues for the map. Ben is terrified of Long John’s ruthlessness, but it is
Long John’s own terror of ghosts that allows Ben Gunn to create the brilliant plan
that brings Silver down. During his time on the island, Ben Gunn moved the buried
treasure to a secret lid in a cave and this clever plan is the cause of the pirates’
downfall.

The Crew of the Hispaniola

Captain Smollett
An experienced captain of many years, Captain Smollett is a simple, good and
honest man. Being a sensible man, he wants nothing to do with treasure voyages,
and is appalled to learn that he hasn’t had the choice of his own crew. He has little
patience for landlubbers, particularly Squire Trelawney, and though they share close
quarters on board, the Captain has little time for the Squire. The captain spends his
time aboard ship split between the map room and on deck, but is always hard at
work.

Grey
Grey is exactly what he sounds like. Dressed all in grey and with grey clothes and
hair, he is characterised by how easily forgettable he is. He is the first professional
seaman to be hired for the Hispaniola crew, and then is promptly re-hired by the
Squire, who has forgotten the whole thing. A surprisingly excellent swordsman, Grey
uses stealth as a weapon. On the island, Grey’s invisibility leads directly to the
escape of the goodies when the pirates forget to tie him up. A loyal crewmember and
a faithful friend, Grey is eventually vindicated when Jim remembers his name.

The Shantyman
Grizzled and aged, with a voice to match, the Shantyman is a typical tall-ship fiddler.
His songs are the music our crew uses to work by. Without him the hardest work on
board would be much more difficult, not to mention thankless.
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Interview with Bryony Lavery

Did you know Treasure Island well before you got offered the job of adapting it
for the Oliver?

No, I think I must have read it, and I’ve certainly seen the film version but I don’t
remember it apart from bits of Robert Newton, and I couldn’t remember anything
beyond the Inn. That’s what I remembered as the Black Spot and those people
coming to the inn, and I think I must have read it when I was quite young, and so the
Black Spot lodged in my mind as very frightening. I remember a bit of Ben Gunn, but
once I was on the island I couldn’t remember a thing.

It’s funny how common that response is when you ask people about what they
remember about the novel.

Not really if you look at the book, because the book holds its tension and it keeps
having wonderful new frighteners until we get on the ship, and then it gets a bit
circular.

When you re-read it before starting work on it, were you excited about the idea
of adapting it?

It was exciting and also it needed stuff fixing. Because there are so many characters
who just have names and get shot or hurt, that you have to make up a crew really.
Treasure Island

There’s one or two that you vaguely remember; you remember dear old Israel Hands
getting killed, but not much more.

Your adaptation is full of invented characters. Where did they come from?

How it came about is there was a great workshop process with a lot of good and
interesting comic actors. So, for example Grey is just a name of a shipmate, but if
you have Tim Samuels in the room these things start connecting up. You think good
comic actor, you’ve got a character called Grey, what if the character called Grey
was extremely grey? And the same with Red Ruth. We had various nice actors
playing Red Ruth. But Red Ruth in the book is one word, and suddenly because I
think we might have had a woman playing it or there was a red-headed actor in the
room, I suddenly thought ‘Red’ and ‘Ruth’. And then because clearly the inn had to
be populated on stage, suddenly it seemed a good idea if the Squire took people
from round about the inn, from Black Cove. I wouldn’t like any actor not to have
something to do if they were on stage, so whenever we discovered one of them I
tried to give them a full story and a journey, and because they’re not the main
characters you give them a memorable thing. Red Ruth loves eating, Lucky Mickey’s
lucky, Grey’s Grey, Killigrew’s a killer, Joan the Goat is half woman half goat, Dick
the Dandy is the best-dressed pirate in the world. It’s perhaps the third or fourth time
I’ve done a play with so many characters, and so I knew how much stage time they’d
get, so they need to make an immediate impression. The next time you see them
you have to think “Oh that’s that!”, and then they have to have an ending to their
story.

Israel Hands is one of the most memorable characters in the novel. How did it
happen that in your adaptation he is a clumsy Portuguese man?

The great Patsy Ferran came in to one of the workshops with a character and she
suddenly started speaking in Spanish, and I thought, my gosh, that’s such a good
idea. Those crews were made up of every nationality, and so we started just making
Israel Hands Spanish-speaking. You have to go with something like that. And so for
a while she was going to be Spanish, and then when we were auditioning, up
popped noted Brazilian clown Angela De Castro and she spent a lot of time learning
Spanish. But then we thought: why isn’t Israel Hands Brazilian? And so she speaks
Portuguese. But it’s serendipity of workshops. I discovered that Joan the goat, the
story about her having a plate fitted to her came from a workshop where everybody
was doing terrible accidents aboard ship and one of the groups nailed a tin-pot lid to
their head. So those characters owe a huge debt to creative workshops.
Treasure Island

During those workshops we spent a lot of time interrogating Stevenson’s plot.

There are lots of questions in the plot that Stevenson doesn’t answer because
he doesn’t know how he’s going to solve them. And that’s difficult for us.

Yes because you know we had to solve them and it was fiendishly difficult.

Have you done a lot of that kind of work before?

No, not to that degree of plottiness, because mostly you don’t have to do it. If it’s
somebody else’s work, there is a story there and you just have to get the right
scenes. Whereas what I think we were doing was making a huge treasure search
because there aren’t clues in Treasure Island. So you kind of have to put in your own
way of how they found the treasure. You don’t have to do very much in the Inn
because that plots itself really. And if you read the ship, only one thing happens on
the ship, and as you know our ship is a very large design thing and we had a lot of
difficulty with what should be seen on the ship and what shouldn’t and with how the
story continues. But Stevenson doesn’t bother to continue the story on the ship, he
just says somebody vanishes mysteriously and then we get to Treasure Island. And
the main thing that happens is that you hear that Long John isn’t the wonderful, kind,
lovely person you thought he was, but that’s all.

How free did you feel to change the text?

I was quite respectful at first, and then I met Polly Findlay who just kept saying what
about this and what about that, and I kept thinking that’s impossible it’s not in the
book, and then getting quite fired by let’s do it!

We had lots of interesting experts come and talk to us during the process.
What kind of an influence did they have on you?

It’s that very nice tension between creating something and something being very
factual and full of stuff about what life was like on a ship, what a ship’s like and what
navigation’s like. I think there’s a great tension, a useful creative tension between
those. That stuff, as you know from the number of times we had to do stars and
navigating is stuff that’s really hard for me to take in, so I kept trying to put it in a
metaphor and that’s where it begins to work. But it’s the stuff of truth that makes the
pirates believable, or that you know that what they’re doing is work, and it’s a hard
life because they’re all chipped about and have got bits missing off them. But as you
know those experts are not only full of facts, they’re full of stories and incidents that
are useful to anyone adapting something that doesn’t happen in her milieu or her
lifetime or her time of history. They were glorious afternoons because you could see
Treasure Island

the experts were encountering actors who are the most receptive and curious people
so the most wonderful questions were asked that ranged from “How does that feel?”
to incredibly intricate technical questions.

You’ve spent some time on boats haven’t you? Did that help you with the
technical side?
I’ve spent ten days and it was a year ago. If I’d been asked to do Treasure Island a
year before I did get asked, I would have known nothing about boats at all, or sailing
or the sea. But I spent ten days on a Cape Farewell sea change expedition in the
Northern Isles and Orkney and Shetland, and so a lot of the story was already in my
DNA, but a year earlier and I’d have just thought “What?”

Had you ever worked on a production as technical as this one?

No, and I’ve never re-written so much for a design, and I found that fascinating
because I’ve never worked so much with the design and the story. Normally you do
the story, then you do the design, but this was very meshed and I really liked that.

Interview with Phillip Breen

What drew you to directing this play?

The truthful answer is that I was asked. But funnily enough, when I was a kid my
grandfather was of the age that, when he was a boy, stories about escaping to the
sea were very romantic for him. Because I am from Liverpool which is a port city so I
had a kind of romantic attachment to sea stories from that really. He had a complete
leather-bound Dickens that I think he got it as a free gift from smoking coupons and
various other classics. They were really just posh wallpaper but the one book he was
really passionate about was Treasure Island. So I had known it as a kid and I picked
it up again and realised just how wonderful the novel is and how influential it is
actually. The characters are so completely vivid: Long John Silver (obviously), Blind
Pew, Jim, the Doctor etc, etc. So there was that. What I think accounts for the
success of Treasure Island is there is a wonderful moral vacuum at the centre of
Treasure Island unlike similar novels such as Robinson Crusoe or The Coral Island
that are all about improving stories for young Victorian men. The great thing about
this is there doesn’t seem to be that moral framework. When you read it as an adult
you realise, as they get towards the treasure, all of these pirates are killing each
other and they are killing the captain and kind of cannibalising themselves. It’s rather
thrilling because without the captain and crew they can’t sail the ship. The novel is
also a bit of a metaphor about the accumulation of wealth and things that the people
do and Bryony has captured this brilliantly in her play. You get the slight element of
Treasure Island

the telling of a good story but what is the equivalent of a good story for the 21st
century. Maybe we have had too many stories in which boys are the hero and our
21st century version of a good story is, to quote the play: “Girls need adventures too.”
So we’ve captured that rather wonderful thing. The play is not only a poem about the
accumulation of wealth but also about the coming of age of an adolescent girl and
the dreams of growing up and encountering sex and death for the first time. So it
really works as metaphor and swashbuckling adventure story and comedy and family
show. It’s got the fun in bucket loads but it also has something poignant and tender
underneath it. Pretty much everything I make, I want it to be like Toy Story so that is
a pretty good touchstone.

What is your vision for the play?

Well, that it is fun and really accessible and really inventive and totally not dissimilar
to those kind of Pixar films. Let’s say I go to the Royal Shakespeare Company and
do a Shakespeare play. I always try in my mind’s eye when watching every scene
during a run of the play to have a 16 year old in my head who is coming to the
theatre for the first time and doesn’t know a thing about this play. What is he or she
thinking about in this moment? The reason I say 16 year old is they are becoming
interested in the world and encountering all of that stuff for the first time. They are
loving like they have never been hurt and dancing like nobody is watching and it is
rather thrilling. For me, I am thinking about my godchildren, who are 5 and 4 and I
am thinking about them and their older siblings coming to the play which is
something I haven’t had to think about for a long time. It has been really interesting
to put myself a bit more in their shoes. My vision is for something that is funny,
frightening, tender and wise but something that is going to have something for every
age group.

How will you begin the rehearsal process?

There are lots of elements to the play such as dancing, singing, music, acting. We
have the wonderful John Ross who is doing movement, Renny Krupinski who is
doing fights, Dyfan Jones who has done the music and Mark Bailey who has done
Treasure Island

the design. We have just got to get all of those elements moving so thus far we have
divided our time between movement workshops, music workshops and fight
workshops. We have had to have all of the creatives in the room and devise a bunch
of material which we may or may not use throughout the rehearsal process. This is
combined with some close text work where we sit round a table and read the play
and look at how the play develops and how thoughts develop with each character.
We pay close attention to what is said and why it may be said. I think a lot of us at
first were thinking that this is a light comedy and that we might get through the table
work quite quickly. But actually it is very complex and much more complex than you
first think which I suppose is Bryony’s huge skill as a playwright; to make something
look very simple which is, in fact, incredibly complicated. She manages to demystify
the play rather beautifully and I think we can only really get to the true bottom of that
by spending proper time analysing the text. So, yeah, it has been a bit of a mixture.
In this second week, we have been putting things on their feet for the first time just to
see if the ideas work practically and coming up with some new ideas. Most of them
have worked but I have had to throw out a whole bunch of ideas for one bit of the
play but actually we now have a bunch of better ideas. But you can only ever know
by doing it.

Will you draw on the novel and film for inspiration?

There are lots of films of Treasure Island so that is two separate questions there.
You could argue that Star Wars is a film of Treasure Island; Young boy, father has
died, accidentally uncovers a map, they hire a captain and nobody wants to be
drawn into a fight where they all kill each other. It is very similar. There have been a
number of film versions of Treasure Island. There has been The Muppet’s Treasure
Island and the Disney Treasure Island. I’ve only seen the famous Disney live action
version and I didn’t find that it was particularly faithful to the spirit of the novel. It was
dutiful in that all the things that happen in the novel happened in the film but I don’t
think it spoke to the soul of the novel in the way that Bryony’s play does. I haven’t
watched many of the films so I haven’t seen the Muppet version and I haven’t seen
Treasure Planet. The novel, of course, we are constantly referring back to the novel
because the novel gives us feel, depth, texture. An example of this is the
descriptions of how Long John Silver moves across the ship. He is described as
having a lanyard on which he has his crutch so when he doesn’t need his crutch he
can use his hands and crawl across the ship and he can swing on ropes so he can
do anything. That isn’t in Bryony’s play per say but we can draw on the novel. When
Michael and I are discussing how Long John Silver moves, for example, we can use
those descriptions of him hopping around like a bird quite dexterously on his leg. So
we draw on the novel for little details of characterisation that can’t always be there in
Treasure Island

a play and we also draw on it for mood and feel. I think our version, I hope, is in
production and in Bryony’s text very true to the spirit of the novel as well as being a
swashbuckling adventure story and also touching on more profound things about
growing up.

What are the main challenges of directing this play?

There is so much to it. It is not just acting or just a musical as it is a bit of everything.
You have to be able to synthesise a huge amount of separate elements. And the fact
that it is quite a big cast for a theatre outside of the RSC or the National Theatre. I
mean 18 is a huge, huge cast and all of whom are moving, dancing, singing and
acting to varying degrees. They are going to costume fittings, music calls and the
rest of it and you have to balance all of that. The schedule is a tough element. There
is not a single director I know that wouldn’t say it would be better with double the
time but you are always up against the clock. This week, for example, I have set
myself a task of making sure that we get through all of Act 1 and at least look at all of
the scenes. And I think we are going to get there! We are always up against it time
wise so the difficulties are the size of it but also doing a family show and making sure
we get an adventure story and a touching coming of age story too.

Who is your favourite character and why?

It’s very much beholden on a director to not have a favourite character. I know that is
maybe a slight cop out but I think in order to make the play really work you’ve got to
love all of them equally. Whenever I am preparing a play, I always try and read it
from the perspective of each character and that can often give a play real life. So, if
you are doing Hamlet, you could say this is a story about a student called
Guildenstern who comes to a Palace and so on. It is often very illuminating because
my job really is to co-ordinate the specialised talents of everybody, which includes
the actors, in order to help them achieve their best. We have to be able to think
through the play from their perspective and so I don’t really have a favourite. I like all
of them. That is the thing about a great play. In a great play, everyone is right and all
of the characters find a way of finding a form for something that is very difficult to
say. In this case, if you could say the play is about anything, it is about a young girl’s
adolescent experiments in self hood and each of the characters in their own way
helps us understand Jim a bit more which in turn helps us understand the point of
the play. The setting of the play is a pirate ship and there are high seas and all the
rest of it but that is not what the play is about. The play is about a young girl’s
coming of age story.
Treasure Island

How relevant is this play to a contemporary audience?

Any classic is always relevant and it is our job to make that connection. It is our job
to make the case for the play’s relevance. This isn’t relevant in the way that, for
example, What Shadows is relevant. It is not on-the-nose politically relevant but like
all classic plays it is always relevant. Like Hamlet, again a famous play, there is
always a young person coming into consciousness and suddenly going: I might die
one day. And what is it going to be like? Dealing with issues of family, fatherhood,
motherhood and being a son or a daughter. There are always teenagers who are
having these first experiences of struggling with what it is to be a hero/heroine and
what it is to have an encounter the darker side of our nature. And working out who
we are; making mistakes, falling in love with who we shouldn’t fall in love with, being
attracted to people we shouldn’t be attracted to, chasing treasure when we perhaps
have bigger riches in our family or in our more immediate surroundings. That aspect
of the tale is timeless. I have frequently watched TV shows like The X Factor and
you have footage of this enormous family gathered in a house somewhere and they
are all sitting around on tenterhooks watching for their friend or daughter who is in
the show. They then cut to the daughter saying “This is all I have ever wanted and I
can’t go back to where I came from.” And you think, what can’t you go back to? A
really nice house with people who love you and like you? So this meditation on what
treasure is seems in some way quite timely perhaps particularly for an adolescent
girl. How do we define what treasure is?

Can you describe this production of Treasure Island in three words?

Fun, scary, touching.

Treasure Island

Set design

Below are some pictures of the model box for Treasure Island created by the designer. A
model box is a small model of the set, built to scale.
Treasure Island

Bringing a Novel to life in the English classroom

Treasure Island

The exercises below relate to a number of different texts and these practical
drama activities will help you bring the novels to life in the classroom.

Warm Ups

Map of the world

Use any relevant settings and places from real life or a novel such as:

 Where you were born and one thing about that place
 A first big move
 Somewhere you were inspired
 The setting of your favourite novel

Stop, go, clap, jump

The group walk around responding to the commands. When the group are walking
and responding freely, the facilitator reverses the commands

Huggies

The group walk around. The facilitator calls out numbers of people that the group
should split into. If the group isn’t divisible into the smaller numbers, any extra people
have to hide inside one of the hugs.

Supporting structures – small groups have to make connected shapes with different
numbers of supporting structures (feet, hands, knees, elbows etc)

Curious Incident Exercises

Treasure Island

Objects

Making shapes in groups – Washing machine, Big Ben, London Eye, Ticket Machine

Then individuals imagine their daily routine and choose 3 actions they do every day
and develop into a physical routine.

The rest of the group make the inanimate objects involved in the routine and create a
sequence. For example, if the routine involves hanging a coat on a hook, one or
more people are the coat, others are the hook etc.

Distribute the text extract, and read aloud as a group. In the same groups as before,
in exactly the same way, incorporate the text into a physical telling of Christopher’s
coming home. They decide how to tell the story; they can have a narrator, or each
person speaks the text as they respond to it physically, etc. Share with the rest of the
group.

Reflect on what it tells us about Christopher’s world: he is at the centre of everything,

he expects things to work around him, he has relationships with the physical world
as he finds the social world very challenging, etc. His memory of such an emotional
life event is rooted in physical detail.

TEXT

Mother died two years ago.

I came home from school one day and no one answered the
door, so I went and found the secret key that we keep under a
flowerpot outside the kitchen window. I let myself into the house
and wiped my feet on the mat. I put the key in the bowl on the
table. I took my coat off and hung it by the side of the fridge so it
would be ready for school the next day and gave three pellets of
rat food to Toby who is my pet rat. I made myself a raspberry
milkshake and heated it up in the microwave. Then I went up to
my bedroom and turned on my bedroom light and played six
games of Tetris and got to level 38 which is my fourth best ever
score.

Actioning
Treasure Island

Use a very short piece of text and give each line an action, which should be a
transitive verb, thus making the line active, so we see what the character is trying to
do to the person/ people they are speaking to.

We used the scene with MR Thompson, giving each actor a secret action to play.
The audience has to guess what the action of each actor is. Then repeat with
another pair and 2 new actions.

Group 1
Mr Thompson- to encourage
Christopher - to accuse

Group 2
Mr Thompson- to dismiss
Christopher- to enlist

Then ask Christopher to play a different action- to test, and repeat scene.

Choices

Facts and Questions

In groups - test what we know and what we need to know about a scene and what
information actually exists on the page or in the story

States of Tension – exploring the degree and quality of energy a character could
bring to a scene. First, the group explores a scale of tension, for example, waving

1) A tiny wave – do I know you?

2) A slightly bigger and more energised wave – oh, hi
3) A really cheery wave – great to see you
4) Across the road to attract attention
5) Across the railway station, you’re on the wrong platform and the train’s leaving
any minute
6) Get out of the burning building

The scale is also fun to play with as a series of laughs:

Treasure Island

1) A tiny snigger
2) Quite a good joke
3) A really good joke
4) A brilliant joke
5) So funny your drink is coming out of your nose
6) Hysterical laughter, you can’t even stay on your feet

We explored different choices of staging of the scene including different settings,

actions, character back stories (crystal meth/Mrs Thomson’s affair) and states of
tension to see how they affected our understanding of the characters and the story.

Five Freeze Frames (Treasure Island and Curious Incident)

Give small groups an image-rich passage to read aloud. Each group should read the
passage once or twice and then put it away. Between them, the groups should
remember which images or impressions stuck in their minds.

The groups then choose 5 images and make a separate tableau/frozen picture of
each one

The groups can then animate their pictures and find interesting ways to link them in
any order so that they have a movement sequence

Once they have the sequence, the groups can experiment with adding text and
sound. When sharing the sequences it may also be interesting to experiment with
different recorded sounds to see how they alter the atmosphere and quality of the
scenes
Treasure Island

Treasure Island Sequence

Masking Tape Mapping

Identify the different worlds of the story and invite small groups to take a section
each to map out, either on the floor or on large sheets of paper – the bigger the
better! Allow time to add as much detail as possible, and let each group talk the
others through their scene.

Hands and Feet

Use this exercise to explore the experiences of a character going on an important

journey – for example, Jim going to sea on the Hispaniola. Ask each person to draw
round one hand and one foot. The hand represents everything Jim is leaving behind
in their old world – the foot represents everything they take with them as they step
out into their new life. Ask each person to

Truffling

A way of developing a rich background world for a story. Ask everyone to walk
around the mapped out spaces and think about everything that could happen in
them. They shouldn’t be imagining the actual scenes or events of the story, but all
the incidental events and characters that support the world of the story. In other
words, anything at all can be imagined as long as it belongs credibly within the world
of the story. As people walk around, anyone who gets an image in their head should
clap their hands. The whole group gather around in a huddle as quickly as possible
and the person who has clapped shares their idea, using the words:

I see a…

Once the group have truffled a few images, you can extend the form to include other
senses:

I hear a…

I smell a…

Etc
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Ribbon Journeys

Take characters on an imaginary journey around the island, layering up their

experience. Begin with some individual character improvisations. These could
include developing back-story using numbers, for example:

 Think of a number between 1-10. That’s how many fights you’ve been in since
you landed on the island
 Think of a number between 1-30. That’s how many hours it is since you last
ate
 Think of a number between 0-10. That’s how many coins you own
 Think of a number between 1-20. That’s how many miles you’ve already
walked today
 Think of a number between 1-10. That’s how many times you’ve already tried
to find the treasure
 Think of one physical feature that is on your mind – e.g. a headache, a blister,
a black eye

Now ask everyone to take a journey around the space – their treasure hunt - ending
back where they started. Keep repeating the journey, layering in new physical stimuli
each time.

This time add a change of levels/turn or roll/pause/change of pace/balance/sound or

words.

Put this together as a performance piece using a recorded soundtrack to add to the
atmosphere. The facilitator can set people off at different times so confident
performers can set the tone and less confident performers can follow when more
people are moving around.

You can collect the words and phrases created here for the Haunted House
exercise.
Treasure Island

Walks and Atmospheres

Ask everyone to walk around and then give different imaginative stimuli to
experiment with ways in which a group can change the atmosphere in a room

For example:

You’re too cold/too hot

Your clothes are too loose/tight

The room is cluttered/empty

There’s something outside the room that you are afraid of

There’s something inside the room that you’re afraid of

Haunted House Trigger Game

Give everyone an evocative line of text (or use text generated in the previous
exercise if appropriate).

Spend some time working on the line – try playing it different ways, e.g. as a health
and safety announcement/greeting/ham Shakespearian line/warning/secret message
etc

Add a gesture to support the most important word/image in the line. Amplify the
performance. If necessary add a change of levels, a turn, a change of volume or a
new position in the space to ensure plenty of variety.

Now ask everyone to take up a position in the space and choose a trigger. When a
character walks through the space, they will trigger different individuals to perform
their line and action.

Explore!
Treasure Island

Coram Boy

Individual Facts and Questions

Cast the characters in the scene and do a quick F and Q exercise with the whole
group. Then ask individuals to do a more detailed F and Q on their own character –
and answer as many of their own questions as they can.

Extended Character Improvisation

Run an individual character improvisation:

1) Start in your own home, doing an activity that you would do there – reading,
thinking, cleaning, painting, writing cheques, whatever.
2) As you perform this activity, answer any questions about yourself (use the
Think of a number… technique for providing back-story).
3) Once you’ve built up some characteristics, invite everyone to fill in their
answers to the following statements, everyone speaking at once:

Life is…

The world is…

I think…

I feel…

Where Do You Stand

Now ask each of the characters to take a journey to the scene. Position a mark with
a chair at the centre of the scene. This represents the central event of the scene, in
this case, the Governor presiding over the ballot. Ask each person to take up a
position in relation to this chair in answer to the question Where Do You Stand? This
can be naturalistic (e.g. next to the Governor) but it can be symbolic of a character’s
emotional state – so if someone wants to lie under the chair or drape themselves
over the Governor, or face out of the room, that’s fine too.

Now bring the scene to life…

Treasure Island

Status Lines

Ask everyone to make a status line according to the status of their character. It may
be necessary to make several lines, e.g. at different points in the story, or from
different perspectives.

War Horse

The Auction

Set up the Auction giving everyone a character to play with some information about
their intention in the scene.

Each character should also have two numbers on their character card. The
significance of these numbers should be revealed gradually.

Invite someone with plenty of volume and clarity to play the Auctioneer and run the
scene. Explain that the left hand number is how much money each character has to
bid on the house (if they want to bid). As the scene plays out, stop the action
occasionally to check in with characters at key moments. You can also move around
the scene giving individual prompts to certain characters if necessary.

Once Ted and Albert have bought Joey, you can spend time exploring the
relationship they develop. We use Albert’s Footsteps to demonstrate how Albert
teaches Joey to trust him and take food from a bucket. Horses don’t like to be looked
at directly when they are scared, so Joey backs away from Albert when Albert
approaches with the bucket of food. But when Albert turns his back, Joey creeps
towards him to try and get some food…
Treasure Island

Acetates Exercise

We used the acetates exercise to explore the world of war in the story.

Use any evocative images of the story world (not actual scenes). They should be A4
or A3. We used cut up fridge magnet style words from Dulce Et Decorum Est and A
Soldier’s Kiss by Henry Chappell (about saying goodbye to a dying horse).

Begin by choosing words that resonate with your image and place the words
however you want over the image – think carefully about the positioning and
arrangement of words.

One you are happy with the words, lay the acetate on top. Now use Sharpies or
similar markers that write on acetate to add marks, images, words and colours to
add any further comment on the scene. If possible, have plenty of acetate available
for experimentation.

Invite each person or group to show and explain their finished work to the rest of the
group.

General Exercises

7,3,1

Write out your story in 7 sentences, then 3, then 1. Don’t cheat by using over long
sentences or lots of semi colons! The final version should be a distillation of the
theme, not an attempt to tell the story in one sentence!

Conscience Alley

To discover the internal thoughts of a character – eg Francis in Heroes when he

suffers from guilt about having failed to save Nicole.
Treasure Island

Ask everyone to stand in two lines and think of one thing that might be going on in
the character’s head (or something another character might be saying to them). Ask
someone to play the character and walk down the line, listening to the thoughts
being spoken to them as they pass.

Special thanks to:

Sam Caird for the interview with Bryony Lavery, the synopsis and the character
breakdowns.

Kate Beales for the section Bringing a novel to life in the English classroom.

National Theatre as publisher of the above sections.