SHERLOCK HOLMES IN TROUBLE. To 9 August.
Manchester
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN TROUBLE
by Mark Long and Emil Wolk
Royal Exchange Theatre To 9 August 2003
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed 2.30pm, Sat 4pm
Runs 2hr 25min One interval
TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 July
Holmes and Watson save the show, if not the world.Any successful parody or spoof needs to give the impression that the author(s) could have done at least as well preferably, better than the original being subjected to their mistreatment. The problem with this Holmes 'adventure' is the lack of such evidence. The over-extended first act, especially, threatens to come apart at the stays as piled-up ingenuity teeters around without much sense of a coherent controlling structure.
Still, those People Show vets. Mark Long and Emil Wolk have come up with an amiable-enough ramble, lit up by inspired moments. Even the predictable jokes can be deftly funny. When Jason Watkins' sublimely serious and blithely unaware Watson declares Holmes is getting in touch with his feminine side, we know what's coming yet the sight of Lloyd Hutchinson in full female rig, with bust, bustle and tell-tale deerstalker is still, as they say, a tonic. It even pre-echoes a moment when Sherlock turns up on duty in female disguise.
Hutchinson's rich-voiced performance succeeds by retaining absolute seriousness, at times adopting a lugubrious quality. It offsets Watkins' lighter-voiced, more expostulating characterisation. These two performances are in the 'worth-the-price-alone' class, though there's especially good support from Miltos Yerolemou as Holmes' street-sidekick (diminishing humour from the gag of him repeating everything he says).
And Joyce Henderson's re-titled Miss Hudson offers fine off-the-wall acting perfectly matching the character's humour. This is Long and Wolk in top-league, apparently well-mannered People Show-style subversion. From housekeeper, absently leaving others to answer her front door, to twenties hostess in lazy, married-to-tinned-food-manufacturer affluence, Henderson's Hudson is spot-on cra-zee insouciance unaware of how ridiculous it is.
In the Exchange's First Gallery I found a scene set in the villain's library concealed from me by a rooftop Watkins: a furiously active scene I can only recall as the incident of Watson's buttocks. That apart, the incredible plot (as so often with such things) fails to jump the credibility gap with its Sherlock-saves-the-world scenario. It depends how much you value plot and how familiar some of the routines are. I was mildly amused at times. But, vox populi, the audience seemed to leave as people happy with the show.
Mother/Eve: Lorren Bent
Coroner: Richard Eton
Zeppelin Captain: Toby Hadoke
Miss Hudson: Joyce Henderson
Sherlock Holmes: Lloyd Hutchinson
Pharoah: Andrew St Clair-James
D I Lestrade: Simon Startin
Dick Turpin: Susan Swanton
Dr James Watson: Jason Watkins
Two Times: Miltos Yerolemou
Crato: George Yiasoumi
Director: Emil Wolk
Designer: Rae Smith
Lighting: Jon Buswell
Sound: Steve Brown, Peter Rice
Music: Bruce O'Neil
Assistant director: Joanna Combes
2003-07-20 12:54:43