PHYSICAL, PIRATICAL, PLAYFUL
All aboard the Jolly Todger, where Long John Silver’s parrot Alexa (she comes from the Amazon, get it?) keeps accidentally ordering unwanted Chinese lanterns. But she comes into her own when she flies down and picks up the second treasure map on Skeleton Island.
There’s something comfortingly British in Le Navet Bête’s four-man mixture of cleverness, sharp timing and clowning ridiculousness, as it cavorts disrespectfully round a classic national treasure for two hours. There’s enough of Robert Louis Stevenson’s original for the audience to spend the interval happily doing “Aharrrr Jim Lad!” at one another, but it veers off happily in many directions, teasing the front row panto-style and even at one point lurching into vaudeville crosstalk about three sailors called Who, Why, and I-dont-know.
So we get the Admiral Benbow pub, and see Blind Pew deliver the dread Black Spot to Billy Bones, but then hit a dockside version of Play Your Cards Right with Matt Freeman in tight lurex as the lovely assistant. Bald lanky Freeman’s taste for wriggling , pouting drag and camp is proven further as a fabulously flapping mermaid who talks fluent whale, a sailor in a cropped Gaultier T-shirt or – in the really shakingly funny second act – an Australian version of marooned Ben Gunn, in one flip flop and one wellie while his tame gorilla puppeteers his imaginary wife made of coconut-shells and raffia.
The navêteers are an established troupe, often surfacing around Christmas and holiday times with anything from this to King Arthur or Dracula. John Nicholson writes and directs, Fi Riussell’s set and Matt Freeman’s costumes are lovingly detailed (the wigs alone are worth it, from Billly Bones’ alarming rat-tails to the candy-striped mermaid and whatever that is Ben Gunn has on his head). There are enough self-aware fake-mistakes to rouse the audience to actual cheers – physical comedians must end up with a lot of bruises. Al Dunn’s Long John Silver develops a nice line in weary sarcasm about it all. And before the finale becomes a chorus from Cheers and a blast of “In the Navy!” in tighty whitey shorts, there is a viciously funny joke about “the journey” for our hippyish age. They deserve all the hysteria they got.
New Wolsey to 14 June
then touring to 5 Oct – Oxford, Wakefield, Exeter,Minack, Salisbury, Barnstaple
rating 4
theatreCat 