Shiver me timbers, it’s Keith

With his roguish charm and grizzled visage, Keith Allen should bring a realistic air of piratical menace to the role of Long John Silver in the new West End staging of Treasure Island.

The comic actor, 55, has recently become a family-friendly villain, tormenting Robin Hood as the blackhearted Sheriff of Nottingham on BBC One on Saturday evenings. But the former hellraiser detailed his drug and alcohol binges, along with a propensity to strip naked in public, in a candid autobiography, Grow Up. The father of six children (including the pop starlet Lily) via four different women, Allen admits to issues with monogamy.

Now more likely to be seen tending his garden in Gloucestershire than carousing with the stars, Allen can at least relive his swashbuckling days on the stage.