Treasure Island playing at the Greenwich Theatre from August 19

Visitors to Greenwich’s World Heritage Site were treated to a nautical surprise this week when the cast of Greenwich Theatre’s Treasure Island were spotted on a rare break from rehearsals.

David Haller, Elliott Bornemann, Lauren Drennan and Helen Ramsay are set to bring 30 or more characters to life this summer when the theatre’s madcap comedy version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure story takes to the stage.

When cabin boy Jim Hawkins (Haller) is apparently taken under the wing of Long John Silver (Drennan) he happily embarks on what he expects to be an exciting sea voyage in search of treasure, but thanks to a crew of pirates, a strangely familiar Captain Birdseye (Ramsay) and the wildly eccentric castaway Ben Gunn (Bornemann), nothing ends up being quite as it seems.

The show’s director James Haddrell said: “This year we’ve been lucky enough to secure a fantastic script from Le Navet Bete, a brilliant comic theatre company, so this will be unlike any production of Treasure Island that our audiences have seen before.

“Fans of the Greenwich pantomime will recognise a lot of the comedy style, but there’s much more besides.”

Playing from August 19 to September 4, Treasure Island follows last year’s acclaimed production of Pinocchio in establishing the Greenwich Theatre summer show as a popular fixture in the borough’s cultural calendar.

The cast of Treasure Island – Pictures: Lidia Crisafulli