A hearty hit that is certain to ‘shiver your timbers’

This new musical adaptation of “Treasure Island” is “the perfect show” for the holidays, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. Indeed, Paul Foster’s production at the Bristol Old Vic – which brings Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale to life amid a modern-day pub storytelling competition – “is so finely wrought it warrants a much longer life”. Jake Brunger (book and lyrics) and Pippa Cleary (music and lyrics) were responsible for “The Great British Bake Off Musical” (2022). That was a “sweet but lightweight” concoction; this is “saltier and more satisfying”. Lustily performed by eight actor-musicians, and infused with a love of Bristol and its maritime heritage, it “combines comic touches and modern flourishes” with traditional “swashbuckling derring-do”. If I have a gripe, it’s that there are too many mood-setting numbers. Otherwise, this looks like a very hearty hit that is certain to “shiver your timbers”.

What sets this enchanting show apart is the “confidence of its makers”, said Kris Hallett on WhatsOnStage. “The songs are genuine earworms, lyrics crisp and playful, the score darting from Spanish pop and calypso to hints of Sondheim.” And there is a real charm to Tom Rogers’s design, with its vast map of Bristol that peels away to reveal ship and island – a flourish that has both “grandeur and theatrical simplicity”. The cast impresses, too. Adryne Caulder-James’ performance as a gender-flipped Jim Hawkins is “brave, sharp and mercifully unsentimental”. As Long John Silver, Colin Leggo is “part villain, part wary mentor”. Comedian Jayde Adams “shines as both MC and an energetically oddball” Ben Gunn. All in all, it’s an “inviting night of family-friendly theatre”. 

I could have done with a bit more of a sense of menace, said Rachel Halliburton in The Times. Still, the energy, great singing and Adams’s comedic skill carry things along, and by the end, even the most “rum-sozzled cynic” would find the evening hard to resist. Filled with puppetry, sword fights and “rousing melodies”, this terrific entertainment “shrieks with life”, said Anya Ryan in The Guardian. “There are no Christmas carols here, but this adventure leaves you with a warm, seasonal glow.”

Bristol Old Vic. Until 10 January

From mouthwatering recipes to insightful essays

Lugma by Noor Murad
This first solo book by a former member of the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen is a “vibrant, wholehearted celebration of the food of the Middle East” said Mark Diacono in Delicious. From coffee, cardamom and chipotle-rubbed lamb chops to burnt aubergines with fenugreek sauce, tahini and fried shallots, Murad’s recipes are highly appealing. With its title meaning bite or mouthful in Arabic, “Lugma” is “immersive and transporting”, said Chris Morocco on Bon Appétit.

All Consuming by Ruby Tandoh
This book is that rare thing, said Harriet Fitch Little in the Financial Times: a work that “pays serious attention to the pop-culture side of food”. In charmingly written essays, Tandoh explores how “the internet remade recipe writing”, and “why bubble tea went global”. Her writing blends an appealing “chumminess” with “intellectual acuity and cultural literacy”, said Sarah Moss in The Observer. The result is a “joyous blend of curiosity, intelligence and generosity”.

Indian Kitchens by Roopa Gulati
Gulati’s books are always “rich and rewarding”, said Mark Diacono, “and her latest is no exception”. Based on her travels through six Indian regions, it contains more than 100 recipes, both her own and those of “12 home cooks” she encounters along the way. Gulati “conjures up a world in which people think nothing of rolling their own flatbreads and making their own yoghurt”, said Bee Wilson. The result is a “remarkable” portrait of the “reality of everyday kitchen life in India”.

Padella by Tim Siadatan
As the “perma-queues outside his restaurant in London, Padella, show only too well”, Tim Siadatan “knows what people want”, said Tony Turnbull. And in this superb book, the “master” pasta-maker reveals the tricks and techniques that make his dishes, such as tagliarini with crab and chilli, or lasagne made with slow-cooked veal shin, so irresistible. “I might skip the calf’s brain with morels and rosemary butter, but it shows what a completist Siadatan is.”

Chronicler of British life

In 1986, the photographer Martin Parr published “The Last Resort”, “a book that would define him in the public mind for the rest of his career”, said Charles Darwent in The Guardian. Parr, who has died of cancer aged 73, was then living in Wallasey, Merseyside. His photos of the run-down nearby resort of New Brighton “showed Northerners at play: men in cloth caps eating chips with their fingers; women sitting on buckets; children eyeing virulent ice creams; rubbish blowing under leaden skies”. Exhibited first in Liverpool, these pictures had a positive reception. But when the show moved to the Serpentine in London, they prompted a wave of critical disapproval. Parr, who was middle class and Southern, was attacked for his pitiless scrutiny of the Northern poor, for patronising and exploiting them. In Parr’s eyes, this was unfair: his photographs were not patronising but “lyrical”. 

Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey, and went to Surbiton Grammar School. “The advantage of coming from Surrey is that everywhere else looks more interesting,” he would say. His parents were bird-watching Methodists. His grandfather encouraged his interest in photography, which he studied at Manchester Polytechnic. At the time, serious photographs were in black and white. Parr’s own career, after working as a photographer at Butlin’s, began with “a body of work in black and white chronicling the disappearing customs in the north of England”, said The Telegraph. But for “The Last Resort” he moved to bright, saturated colour – his favoured palette thereafter. His next series poked fun at another extreme of “Thatcher’s Britain”, a “loadsamoney world of Conservative fêtes, horse trials, big hats, starched shirts and floral prints”. In time, he would be admired as “a playful satirist, skewering the nation’s eccentricities”. Parr recorded “mundane absurdities” and details that are “eloquent about status and taste: chintzy lavatory-roll covers, dark brown tea in china cups, and greasy fry-ups”. 

Later, he turned his attention to “Small World”, a series of colour images taken between 1987 and 1994, which “depicted the spread of mass tourism around the globe”, said The Times. But it was ParrWorld, as he called it, for which he would always be best known: quotidian British life, with all its strangeness, which is all around us if we only open our eyes to it. “There’s something very interesting about boring,” Parr once said.