Quintin Jardine's blog

Devotees of Robert Louis Stevenson may wish to look away now.

I’ve just spent part of the last two evenings watching Sky’s adaptation of Treasure Island. Now it’s all over I find myself asking one question. Why did anyone in his right mind allow a jobbing screen-writer to tinker with the greatest adventure story ever written? Leaving aside the questionable political correctness of the casting, how were the producers persuaded that there was added value in turning the steely Doctor Livesey, who faces down the menace of Billy Bones very early in the book, into  a cowardly simpering alcoholic? I don’t remember Poor Ben Gunn being a woad-painted guerilla fighter. Who came up with the notion of turning Squire Trelawney into a sadistic Dickensian villain, so obsessed with gold that he dies rather than let it go? And what genius allowed the plot switch in which young Jim Lad tosses all the treasure over the side at the end?

I don’t blame the actors. (Other than Shirley Henderson, who insisted on mumbling or squeaking every line she had.) They all did professional jobs, even if some will by now be regretting having such a turkey on their credit list, most of all Keith Allen, who was completely unrecognisable as Blind Pew. But I do blame those who commissioned the project. Sky has been doing some very good original drama lately; too bad they screwed this one up.