TheatreguideLondon
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The TheatreguideLondon Review
The Secret of Sherlock Holmes
Duchess Theatre Summer 2010
Jeremy Paul's short portrait of Holmes and Watson is in effect a race through the Collected Stories, omitting the stories.
Paul has stitched
together the little bits of characterisation and background that make
up the first page or two of many of Conan Doyle's tales, to give a nice
sense of the relationship between the two men when they weren't off
solving crimes.
Those who know the
stories will recognise the references I'm about to drop - Watson's
watch, Holmes's violin, cocaine, the cluttered attic theory of memory,
Irene Adler, Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes, Watson's marriage, Professor
Moriority, Reichenbach Falls, beekeeping. (If you don't know the
references, their significance is explained as they are mentioned.)
What we don't get
is the Sign of Four or the Hound of the Baskervilles or any view of
Holmes actually at work. And for at least half the evening that works
quite nicely if you don't expect too much, the playwright, director
Robin Herford and the two actors creating attractive pictures of the
two iconic figures and even giving them some fresh colours.
Peter Egan makes
Holmes considerably warmer and more human than many have played him,
with secret pains and moments of self-doubt, and with a real affection
for his friend. Robert Daws' Watson is even better, not the comic
figure we're too familiar with, but a man of feeling who is quite close
to Holmes in intellectual ability and probably his superior in moral
sense.
The play falls
apart somewhat in the second half, when we get to The Secret, which is
neither original nor convincing, and which is presented so confusingly
that I'm honestly not sure whether the playwright wants us to believe
it or see it as evidence of a mental breakdown in the detective. (I
suspect that the actors aren't too sure either, since their control
over their characterisations, and even their lines, wavers
significantly in this scene.)
For all its quiet
charms, this is at best a very thin evening's entertainment. Holmes
fans can take some pleasure from being reminded of their favourite
bits, and fans of the two actors can enjoy a couple of hours in their
company. But you really have to come to it with considerably reduced
expectations to find it worth £40 a ticket.
Gerald Berkowitz
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Review - Secret of Sherlock Holmes - Duchess 2010
