Treasure Island review – this TV stinker does its best to ruin a literary classic

Tom Sweet as Jim Hawkins, David Oyelowo as Long John Silver and Hayley Atwell as Bess in Treasure Island. Photograph: Paramount Plus (UK)View image in fullscreen Tom Sweet as Jim Hawkins, David Oyelowo as Long John Silver and Hayley Atwell as Bess in Treasure Island. Photograph: Paramount Plus (UK)ReviewTreasure Island review – this TV stinker does its best to ruin a literary classicDid Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless swashbuckling tale need the addition of a superpower? Is it better for reducing its young hero to an afterthought? Nope

A lever groans, a pipe judders and thunk: another unsolicited adaptation of a beloved literary classic is deposited on our screens. This particular emission is a six-part take on Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless tale of swashbuckling adventure, high-seas treachery and thick eyebrowed youths in tiny britches wrestling with double-edged superpowers. The 18th-century novel has of course long captured the public imagination, its themes of … hang on. Superpowers? Aye, that there be. An’ plenty more bilge besides. For this US-UK co-production be what lubbers refer to as a “reimagining”. Which essentially means much effort has been made to “jazz up” – or, if you will, “ruin” – the source material.

And so, for better or significantly worse, the Jim Hawkins (Tom Sweet) of this new Treasure Island, titivated by writer Robert Murphy, has been given a photographic and possibly quasi-mystical memory; a preternatural talent for recollection that is demonstrated in scenes of much whooshing excitement. Here we find the youngster scowling at various documents while the soundtrack whispers mysteriously and the camera zooms slowly in then quickly out of his face, like a bee too embarrassed to ask for directions to the toilet. Not that any of this makes him interesting, mind.

Indeed, Jim’s main contribution to the first couple of episodes is to stand with his mouth open as “feisty” mum Bess (Hayley Atwell) snogs pirates, bribes pirates and burns maps belonging to pirates while bellowing things such as: “I am but a poor widow”. Poor Jim Hawkins; one of literature’s most spirited young heroes has been reduced here to a gulping afterthought, his buccaneering twinkle eclipsed by mummy’s smudged eyeliner.

To darkest Devon, then, where a storm brings with it further indignities in the form of the plot.

Innkeeper Bess Hawkins ’as lost her ’usband and ’er aitches in “the siege of Gibraltar” and now must eke a livin’ from ’er dull son’s ability to speed-memorise passages chosen at random from the King James Bible for the entertainment of ’er soused clientele.

But avast, who be the stranger who just staggered in from the sea? And what is the strange an’ hauntin’ cacophony that emanates from his beard? Could it be … an accent of some sort? It’s certainly possible! “I hem por iiin coin but riiiich in dreeeeeam,” gargles Billy Bones (Tomer “The Boys” Capone) as Bess paws his incomprehensible chest. “An udder quart o’ yor Jamaican rem por favorrrr …?”

From which benighted pocket of the continent could such a tortuous tumult originate? Frangland? Spitaly? Eeet ez a mysteree!

View image in fullscreenSeadog … Billy Bones played by Tomer Capone. Photograph: Treasure Island Series 1/Paramount Plus (UK)Enter terrifying “sea bastard” Long John Silver, who has understandably taken exception not just to Bones’ Vowels de Confusión but also to the fact that his former shipmate has nabbed their dead captain’s treasure map. The nerve! Silver wants said map back and is not best pleased to learn that it now exists solely in Jim’s noggin, the latter having committed its squiggles to memory prior to Bess torching the thing in a fit of widowy pique.

Silver is played by David Oyelowo, who appears to be acting in another adaptation altogether. An adaptation that doesn’t expect him to endure lines such as “we’re sailin’ to freedom!” while balancing a CGI parrot on his shoulder. He is mesmerising and his explosive charisma reduces everyone in the blast zone to a smoking hillock of tricorn. But, alas, not even Oyelowo can lift the plot, which drags its wooden leg towards the Caribbean and limply waggles its rubber cutlass at the ensuing guff storm. Further pointless reimaginings include slow-motion spy battles, additional swirly “magic memory” scenes and family altercations more befitting a teatime soap than a big swanky thing on Paramount+ (“It’s hard doing this all by myself!”)

At one point, a grizzled seadog wobbles to his feet and, apropos not much, barks; “This place stinks!” An observation to which one feels compelled to reply: that it does, matey. That it does.