With the long-running Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), playwright Isobel McArthur lit upon a winning technique – one as exhilarating as it was counterintuitive. You take a popular if essentially serious novel and treat it with just enough irreverence to make it fun. Lest the gags, playfulness and pop songs overwhelm it, you also invest it with enough affection to keep the story compelling and the emotions true.
What worked for Jane Austen also works for Robert Louis Stevenson. Reunited with composer and co-creator Michael John McCarthy plus co-director Gareth Nicholls, McArthur shakes down the swashbuckling tale of young Davie Balfour, orphaned and all at sea in more ways than one, and makes it equal parts funny, thrilling and romantic.
