Behind the Scenes | Treasure Island Episode 1

OutWrd is where stories go big. Because we adapt screenplays into an audio-drama format, there's a unique scope and ambition to every story we bring to life. Now, we're pulling back the curtain to show how these stories are written and brought to life, through a new behind-the-scenes diary.

We’re starting with our OutWrd Plus launch title: Treasure Island.

This is not the polite bedtime version. This is the mature, blood-on-the-map reimagining. Gritty. Coarse. Ambitious to the point of madness. The kind of story most screenwriters only dream of getting green-lit and the kind of story OutWrd was built to make real.

So if you’re a writer, a listener, or just someone who loves seeing how stories like this come to life behind the scenes, this series is for you.

Why We Chose Treasure Island to Launch OutWrd+

When we were planning the launch of OutWrd+, we knew we needed to start with something big - something that set the tone for everything we want this platform to be. Not just another story, not just another adaptation. We needed something that planted a flag. Something that told writers: “This is where you go when you want to build worlds the studios would never let you write.”

That’s why we chose Treasure Island.

We knew it was a gamble. Everyone knows the story - or thinks they do. Disney did their version. The BBC did theirs. It’s been done straight. Done cute. Done safe. So why do it again?

Because that’s exactly the point.

Treasure Island has always had danger in its bones — betrayal, madness, greed, murder. But since Stevenson’s original tale, written for a younger audience in 1883, most adaptations have stayed close to that vision. The pirates remain jolly, the treasure hunt still feels like a boy’s adventure, and the darker elements are usually kept at bay by the comforting glow of a bedtime story. One notable exception is Black Sails, which dared to explore the raw, violent world beneath the myth. We're taking that spirit even further.

So we set out to introduce some violence back into the adventure. Some grime. Some fear. Remind people of the sheer desperation of men who’d kill each other over a map. And we gave it the treatment we give all our stories: full cinematic scale, unapologetic characters, and no compromises. This isn’t the version of Treasure Island you’d show your grandmother. This is the one you whisper about after dark.

Episode 1: Setting the Tone

Episode 1, The Captain’s Chest, had a specific job: light the fuse. Introduce a world already sliding off its axis. Bring Billy Bones' past crashing into Jim Hawkins’ present like a brick through a window.

This episode lives and dies on atmosphere. It’s the slow burn before the explosion. Jim’s father is dead right as our story takes off. The inn is crumbling. There’s this creeping sense that something’s coming and when it finally arrives, it’s not a polite knock at the door. It’s Black Dog and Blind Pew, dragging the shadows of the sea with them.

In adapting this part of the novel, we weren’t interested in the kind of buttoned-up exposition most period dramas deliver. We wanted it dirty and breathless. We stripped the dialogue down to its essence. We let silence hang. We let characters brood. And when the violence finally erupts - when Bones collapses, when the pirates circle like sharks - we let it be messy and raw.

The challenge was tonal. We had to earn the audience’s trust early on. To say: yes, this is Treasure Island, but not the one you’ve heard before. And we had to do that through performance, pacing, and world building - without yet revealing the full scale of what’s to come.

Bigger Than Budget

We wrote Episode 1 like a tv series because that’s how we approach everything at OutWrd. We don’t write like we’re working in audio. We write like we’re crafting cinema or television, then figure out how to make that work with sound. And in this particular story, we knew it had to feel like an HBO series. What would Treasure Island sound like if it was written by George R. R. Martin? Watching Game of Thrones helped, with its cruelty, unfair twists of fate, inventive profanity, and unapologetic violence. Before long, we found ourselves drawing as much inspiration from Sandor Clegane’s simmering rage as from Stevenson’s original prose.

Episode 1 opens with a loud, brutal massacre of English soldiers — all in the name of plunder and gold. From there, it drops into a quiet, lonely portrait of life at the Admiral Benbow. That sharp contrast sets the stage for the bar fight between Billy and Black Dog, and builds toward a heart-pounding final scene where Jim and his mother are forced to flee their home. It feels big. Expensive. And that’s exactly what we were aiming for.

If OutWrd+ is about bold storytelling, then Treasure Island had to set the tone with something loud, cinematic, and impossible to ignore.

Venturing Further Behind the Scenes

From here, the story only gets wilder. John Silver hasn’t even entered the picture yet. The map is still just a rumour. The ship hasn’t sailed. But Episode 1 lays the foundation for everything that’s to come.

A new world. A dangerous one. A version of Treasure Island where no one is safe, and everyone has blood on their hands.

Next time, we dive into Episode 2: A Crew of Rogues where we meet the infamous Mr. Silver and watch the first threads of his hold on Jim begin to tighten.

We look forward to share more soon.

The OutWrd Team

Listen to Treasure Island on OutWrd+ and get access to other projects like Broderick: Murder on the Amalfi Coast, At the Crossing and more.