Lost treasure

Duality, yin and yang, twin-tub theatre. Call it what you like, a Christmas show must straddle the generations and please both kids and adults at once. Casting Keith Allen as Long John Silver in Treasure Island was clearly intended to achieve this double-barrel effect. To kids he’s Lilly Allen’s dad while adults know him as the author of various nuisances in his own right. But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t inject any humour or vitality into this glib and curiously sluggish production. He’s one of those strong-arm acts (Ray Winstone is another) whose air of volatile menace suits the small screen but doesn’t translate well into the theatre’s airy spaces. He looks all wrong. Long John Silver is tall (notice the name), whereas Allen is squat and lacks bulk or muscle. His silky voice is underpowered and those cruel leering features become, at a distance, blandly avuncular and puppyish.