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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Yer swash needs buckling
ANGUS REID applauds the inventive stagecraft with which the Lyceum serve up Stevenson’s classic, but misses the deeper themes
TIMBERS SHIVERED: The cast of Treasure Island at the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh [Jess Shurte]

Treasure Island
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

I relish it when a theatre company has the guts to eviscerate a classic. 

In Warsaw in 1990 I saw a Polish production of Chekhov’s The Seagull that reduced the play to deckchairs, extended pauses and daft symbolism in a witty and absurdist act of cultural vandalism. It was a brilliant East European engagement with things Russian and the deconstruction worked because the audience shared the sense of purpose with which it was done.

What of things Scottish?

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