Simon Bent's new play concerns, in the words of its subtitle, "The early life, adventures and pyracies of the famous Long John Silver before he lost his leg." He describes it as "a tale of murder, lust, revenge, blood and the killing of kings … the real-life story of Stevenson's fictional hero [so that's clear anyway] .. the story of a man capable of good who at every turn is thwarted by evil." Bent has done a lot of research into the world of pirates in the Cromwellian era and some of the results are fascinating, if a little redolent of the midnight oil. Thus he claims that slave traders would put on performances of plays, including Hamlet, with bids made while the slaves performed. This allows him to have Hamlet as a play within this play, a nice conceit and, with its variants such as the actual stabbing on stage of a Polonius figure and his concealment behind a curtain, one of the most enjoyable things about his play. However, it fails to ring true in the context of the larger production. It seems strained and artificial, and typical of the whole evening: a jumble of styles which did not click- pantomime, adventure story, history play, tragedy.
      It has to be said that the Globe audience loved the whole thing, laughing uproariously at the cheap Blackadder gags (repeated cries of "bastards" or "bollocks" or jokes in which one pirate calls out the other's name and, when he replies, says "fuck off"  side-splitting) and also at moments which Bent surely intended to be moving such as torture scenes echoing Lear. They clapped and cheered mightily at the end and the Globe will surely be encouraged to have the play on for a long run.
      The action moves about, from the execution of Charles I (a superfluous opening scene) to Silver's being press-ganged by Oliver Cromwell himself, to the high seas and the pirate parliament in Rabat Salé (more midnight oil; if you want to know, look it up in the informative programme). And the set is quite nautical and atmospheric, with the roof of the Globe covered by a tarpaulin. Silver moves from wheedling West Country assistant to his father, a maverick preacher advocating sin as the fastest way to God, and fornication and nakedness best of all, to forced on-board labourer, to slave, to pirate and pirate leader. He has the occasional lengthy speech, at which point Cal MacAninch gives it some passion and conviction, but those moments are rare; and for the rest it is an unblended concoction of clunky dialogue that fails to convince or engage. One should be moved, for example, when a father and daughter come together after long separation like Pericles and Marina; but not here. And does one care when one after the other the pirates are killed or mutilated? One does not (although I quite liked the extended gag about One-Eyed Pew as he is called in this play before the inevitable befalls him). The women especially are ciphers: both Silver's wife and his mistress, Isabelle, are tortured and killed, but it is hard to raise a sigh. Bent claims to draw contemporary resonance from the fact that Mrs Silver is done in by an agent of the British government. Spare us, please; and Silver's conversion to Islam (yes, conversion to Islam) is nauseating in its PC-ness. It was hard to decide whether Silver's rival for leadership of the pirates (they eventually prefer Silver because he has a more consensual style), Kees De Keyser, was meant to be depressed and world-weary, perhaps drugged or alcoholic, or was simply played in an under-powered way by Nicolas Tennant. He reminded me oddly of Harry H Corbett in Steptoe and Son. (By the way, lads, that name is pronounced "Case", not "Keys".)
      Overall, one has the impression of an opportunity missed, of something half baked. Punches are pulled. MacAninch perhaps has a no nudity clause in his contract, as he does not strip with his father; but it makes a nonsense of the scene in which the pirates, having appointed him their leader, want to see his cock, and having seen it, christen him "Long" John Silver. MacAninch did not so much as mime dropping his pants.
      Bent clearly has the talent. He should take this play and rewrite it, knocking it into something which makes its mind up: either a full-on history play with the dark side emphasised, or a swashbuckling panto, in which case it needs to be a lot funnier and sharper. At the moment, it is a curate's egg; and in real life, curate's eggs get dumped, not consumed.
      The music, though, is terrific. A very lively band performs orientally tinged dance, at times like a cross between Louis Jourdan and the Bonzo Dogs (of the era of "Huntin' Tigers out in Indiah!") and the versatility of Belinda Sykes (oboist, percussionist, dancer and many other things) is especially notable. It is a shame that the songs themselves are not more fluid; but when your chorus is, for example, "Liquor. Slaves. Booty. Women", perhaps it is hard to make much of a go of it.
Roderick Swanston