HOLMES AND THE RIPPER: Clemens, Theatre Royal Nottingham till 9 August.
Nottingham
HOLMES AND THE RIPPER: Clemens.
Theatre Royal: Tkts 0115 989 5555 www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk.
Runs: 2h 30m: one interval: till 9th August.
Performance times: 7.30pm weekdays, (matinee 2.00pm Weds). 5pm and 8pm Sat).
Review: Alan Geary: 4 August 2008.
Un-ashamedly entertaining.
What with global warming, the only sure-fire way of knowing that summer really has arrived is to watch out for the annual Classic Thriller Season. It’s here: McIntyre and Co are back in Nottingham for five weeks - a play a week.
We start the season with a piercing scream - nothing untoward about that. But it’s followed by a late-Victorian tableau scene. Francis Durbridge this ain’t: there’s no sofa centre-stage or proper drinks table upstage-right in this one; in fact there’s almost no scenery, which is a help because it’s highly cinematic and quick scene changes are called for.
A fest for dedicated Ripperologists, the play welds that less than likely Royal Family/Sickert conspiracy theory complete with dastardly Freemasons to the Holmes and Watson stuff we all know and love. For non-Ripperologists the first five minutes might be slightly hard to follow but all soon becomes clear.
Nicholas Briggs gives Holmes real depth. Besides being an intravenous drug imbiber, classic bent billiard pipe smoker, and bad violinist, he’s soft-centred. He keeps harking back to Irene Adler, the only woman in his life, and he starts an affair with a clairvoyant, Mrs Meade, beautifully played by Jane Shakespeare.
Watson (Adrian Lloyd-James), florid-faced and bumbling, is entirely lovable; so is Karen Henson’s Mrs Hudson, the housekeeper at 221B. There’s good acting too from Jo Castleton, in the madhouse scene, and Keith Myers, playing the Prime-Minister and a Blind Beggar.
Despite that recurring “’orrible murder! Read all abaht it!” newsvendor cliché, there are some nice sound effects. And background music is well chosen.
It’s written by Brian “The Avengers, etc” Clemens, whose son Sam happens to be in the cast. It would be giving too much of the game away to say which character, other than The Stranger, he plays.
This is un-ashamedly entertaining, but through it all the real horror and tragedy of murder is allowed to come over.
Sir William Gull/Drunk: Jeremy Lloyd-Thomas.
Lamplighter/Blind Beggar/Lord Salisbury: Keith Myers.
Catherine Eddowes: Sarah Wynne Kordas.
Netley: Duncan Macinnes.
Sherlock Holmes: Nicholas Briggs.
Anderson/Potter: Graham Ashe.
Kate Mead: Jane Shakespeare.
Dr Watson: Adrian Lloyd-James.
The Stranger/Bradbury: Sam Clemens.
Mrs Hudson/Mary Kelly: Karen Henson.
Saunders: Patric Kearns.
Annie Crooks: Jo Castleton.
Policeman: Crispen Tarka.
Director: Colin McIntyre.
Designer: Geoff Gilder.
Lighting Designer: Mark Pritchard.
Music compiled by: Patric Kearns.
2008-08-06 11:26:12