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Treasure Island
- An Audible Original Drama
- Narrated by: Philip Glenister, Daniel Mays, Catherine Tate, Owen Teale
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
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Treasure Island
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Summary
Audible Originals takes to the high seas to bring to life this timeless tale of pirates, lost treasure maps and mutiny, starring Catherine Tate (BAFTA-nominated, The Catherine Tate Show, The Office, Doctor Who), Philip Glenister (Outcast, Life On Mars), Owen Teale (Game of Thrones, Pulse, Last Legion) and Daniel Mays (The Adventures of Tintin, Rogue One, Atonement) amongst others.
Featuring: Stephen Critchlow, James Doherty, Philip Glenister, Peter Gold, Ed Harrison, David Holt, Gerran Howell, Matthew Jure, Daniel Mays, Gerard McDermott, Paul McEwan, Harry Myers, Greg Page, Richard Reed, Mark Straker, Catherine Tate, Owen Teale and Ben Whitehead.
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What listeners love about Treasure Island
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mikey
- 17-08-17
All - star treasure island
Any additional comments?
Truth be told when I first saw Catherine Tate was included among the star studded narrators chosen for this original dramatised version of one of my all time favourite fiction stories, I was pessimistic to say the least. But boy how wrong I was.
Coming from R.L Stevenson's home place of birth in the seaside town of Dorset, I feel a special affinity with this story. I have got hold of all the different versions of this story possible, so I was intrigued to see how this version, although dramatised, would be any different.
Well I can tell you now I was captivated and highly entertained throughout the entire audiobook. I hate to steal the line that you may find on other reviews for dramatised books, but this really was like being involved in a film which was being played to me inside my head. I am currently looking forward to listening to it again, so much so I have placed other books I am looking forward to listening to on the back-burner.
This was a great time to release this audiobook, this would be even more captivating listening from a beach! Whether you will be listening from a beach or on the bus, in your car, home or the comfort of your bed as you slowly wind down for an evening, I am certain you'll have the same experience.. this was great fun!
57 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ailill Martin
- 30-08-17
A Proper Adventure
The story itself reads like the blueprint for all swashbuckling pirate adventures. The brilliantly original characters are brought to life by equally excellent voice actors accompanied by delicious sound effects of the sea and the strange atmosphere of the mysterious treasure island. I was swept along by the many twists and turns of the plot and the gruff tones of the pirates that are intertwined in them.
This is exactly how dramatisations should be executed.
33 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 01-12-17
Excellent adaption.
Thoroughly enjoyed this version of Treasure Island. Faithful to the book but with enough dramatic licence to keep it original and entertaining and helped even further by a wonderful cast. Superb.
19 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- siobhan brophy
- 01-10-17
I was enthralled from the get go
Great book, great story and was read beautifully read. As I sat in the dark and listened, I could picture every scene. I was there!
would highly recommend.
16 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Brunt
- 24-07-18
The treasure is here.
Ah, this is a very good adaptation of a classic tale. Owen Teale is a charismatic monster as John Silver, perfect. Catherine Tate brings warmth and humour to the play. Daniel Mays is by turns funny and tragic as Ben Gunn Philip Glanister plays the doctor like a classic matinee hero. And then there is Stephen Critchlow and particularly Gerran Howell holding the whole play together. In short it's not just a starry cast but one that is perfectly matched to the material.
12 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ricky
- 29-09-17
enjoy it is a new wine with a vintage taste
as one would expect a amazing cast and a epic tale read by epic character brought to life in a truly classical way
enjoy it is a new wine with a vintage taste
11 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- AceWholes
- 17-12-17
The Best Audio Book I've Ever Listened To
A truly brilliant audio book, with a great story, and a exceptional performance by all of the cast. This will definitely be listened to again and again.
Please make more!
9 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- T. Archibald
- 20-09-17
very enjoyable
After watching the black sails show on prime video I wanted to read treasure island to continue the story of the show which was a prequel of sorts. Then I found this on audible and it was what I was looking for and the cast with some good names convinced me to buy
9 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Simon
- 03-04-18
Timbers Suitably Shivered!
Having been critical of a couple of Audible productions recently this one is a real tonic. It's a brilliant adaptation of a classic story. With this one it all seems to come together with a perfect balance to the sound, narration and voice acting. The salty sea dogs smell of brine, the English gentlemen are suitably quaint and most importantly Captain Flint the Parrot is a complete star. I struggle to imagine how they could have done this one much better!
8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Boomshanks
- 26-08-17
really good
loved it. exciting and a good tale to get into. cant beat it a bit of shwashbuckling
8 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tad Davis
- 12-09-17
A reflective adventure
The Audible dramatization of Treasure Island is excellent, with only a few false steps. Owen Teale is great as Silver, with his combination of flattery and ruthlessness. (I would have expected no less of Alliser Thorne.) But that points to one of the false steps here: the cast is named but not the parts they play; I was able to confirm that Teale was Silver only by locating a press release online. That seems a little ungenerous to my way of thinking.
For the record: besides Teale, Philip Glenister is Dr Livesey; Daniel Mays is Ben Gunn; Catherine Tate is Jim's mother. And who among the named cast plays Jim Hawkins, who with his narration has by far the most audio time? No idea. Even Audible'a promotional video doesn't mention him.
Another false step is that there are long gaps of silence between scenes. It's not unusual for an audio play to observe a moment of silence to mark a transition. But here, the gaps between scenes last several seconds; a couple of times I wondered if I'd gone into sleep mode by mistake. These gaps seem tailor-made for some linking music to be added in post-production, but there isn't any. It affects the pace. The gaps seem to slow things down. (There IS music from time to time, usually to set a somber or threatening tone.)
It's a subdued production: a quiet, gritty Treasure Island, one that avoids flashy swashing and buckling in favor of soft and sinister exchanges. And it's a reflective adaptation: with the help of a few lines and a couple of scenes not in the book, it creates a much stronger sense of moral ambiguity than in the book. The Jim Hawkins who returns from the voyage is a very different person than the boy who left, and the difference is bittersweet and satisfying.
In general the production adheres closely to the events of the book — including lots of narration from Jim Hawkins — but it does make some changes. Some scenes are expanded with additional dialogue to good effect (Israel Hands is given a chance to shine, as is Silver's parrot); other changes are apparently made just for the sake of change. Abraham Gray, a brave and honest seaman in the book, is presented here as a sniveling coward.
But despite its subdued tone, and a few changes I found jarring, I found it a compelling listen, one that drew me in by its quiet intensity rather than histrionics. I put that down to the excellence of the cast and the sound design. It's an oddly intimate version of an action-packed adventure.
A version of Treasure Island stands or falls by its Long John Silver and its Jim Hawkins. Both are excellent here: multifaceted and multilayered. And they are given a "necessary scene" at the end that is missing from the book; it's a scene that appears in several film versions of the story, but here it's given straight, without a trace of sentimentality.
The producers have given themselves (and the writer) enough runtime to develop the story much more fully than is usually the case. I enjoyed it a lot, and I recommend it.
335 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Stacy
- 03-08-19
I Thought it Would be the Book
This is good for a dramatization, but I had thought I was downloading the actual book. I looked to see if it said it was abridged, but it didn't. I think I the word, "reimagining" was their attempt at indicating that it wasn't the original text, but I took that to mean dramatized. I wish whenever it isn't the original text, they would say so plainly.
318 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- MaggieB
- 09-11-17
Changed the book
This was exciting and well-acted, and then they changed the end totally unnecessarily. I thoroughly enjoyed this version of my favorite rollicking sea story, but the mysteriously changed the end to make what appeared to be a social commentary. I would have given 5 stars easily if they had left Jim to his riches and hatred of the sea. AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY
248 people found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Wayne
- 28-05-19
Why?
If you are looking for a dumbed-down and over acted version of Robert Louis Stevenson's marvelous British classic, Audible has made it for you. I'd prefer to listen to one of the several straight up narrations of Stevenson's original work available here at Audible. Obviously most reviewers disagree with me.
222 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cindy C
- 30-03-18
Very confusing
I found this recording to be very difficult to listen to. The action scenes, the voices were very mixed and jumbled. It was hard to understand what was going on. If I didn’t already know the story I would have been lost.
137 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Jen
- 10-06-19
Fantastic performance but...
I didn’t love the artistic liberties that they took with the story. They took a classic novel/story and made it a bit more of a modern moral treatise (where those who seem evil are actually good in their own way when compared to the bigoted, hypocritical wealthy). A bit cliche.
108 people found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- G. Vanlo
- 11-09-19
Hard to listen to.
This book was hard to listen to, very loud and annoying. Too many sound effects. Would have been better if the story was just told.
89 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- chris martin
- 02-12-17
Not exactly what I was expecting
Without previewing this I bought this thinking that I would have the words read verbatim, however it was and interpreted performance which is OK but left out a lot of detail and that what I was looking for.
67 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Gillian
- 28-03-18
Let Adventure Get In Your Blood!
Please forgive me: I gave a pass on all things Robert Louis Stevenson when I was younger, thinking all his books were good for boys only. And now, when I'm 50+, I decided to give 'im a try and almost got the Alfred Molina version here on Audible. But I'm actually kinda into grand performances so I got this full cast production instead.
And boy am I glad I did! Pirates! The high seas! Treasure! All done so well, it was a blast!
One thing, though. As I never read RLS before, I can't say whether or not the ending was changed, as one reviewer noted. I can only say that the ending here was fun and quite satisfying: it left you feeling that adventure truly got into the lucky (he HAD to have had quite some luck!) Jim's blood, and the end was only the beginning.
Fun for the family, fun for the lone grown-up.
What fun all around!
58 people found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- TikiQ
- 03-08-19
didn't care for this version. it was difficult for
me to hear all the "dialog" and some of the sound effects were too loud. didn't finish.
56 people found this helpful