Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

This was my first experience of Iris Theatre and their summer residency at St. Paul’s Church Covent Garden, but it won’t be my last. Their four location Treasure Island, with the audience divided into pirates and privateers after the second scene and audience members as ‘extras’ was delightful. 

We started inside the lovely church with the tavern scene, before we join Jim Hawkins on the ship in the church yard. When the ship reaches land, we became part of Long John Silver’s pirates (just as well, as the younger members the party had dressed as pirates and the older members identified with his Welsh valleys heritage). After meeting Ben Gunn, it got a touch confusing as we went to spy on the privateers, but we were back on track in the second half, back on board what was now the pirate ship, on the island and eventually back in the church. Along the way, a number of audience members were secretly given parts and bits of costumes / props, joining in when prompted, though none of us were left out.

I liked the way they engaged with every age group in the audience (my party alone spanned almost six decades). Daniel Winder’s production had a great storytelling quality to it and with some doubling and tripling, just seven actors (plus audience) played all of the roles. Harold Addo’s Jim was a great favourite with all of us, an auspicious professional debut, and of course our compatriot Dafydd Gwyn Howells, who was a commanding and charismatic Long John Silver (a lot of pirates were Welsh, according to the programme notes!).

Great fun, and a lovely afternoon.