This hugely enjoyable new Sherlock Holmes adventure from playwright Joel Horwood gives you all you could possibly want from The Great Detective: the catchphrases, the wild connect-the-dots genius, the Victoriana, the post-Cumberbatch notion that the guy is a bit of an autistic weirdo but cranked up to 10 and given a flamboyant drug habit.
It’s also directed marvellously by Sean Holmes, who turns in a meaty, satisfying romp that has plenty of enjoyably weird grit in its wheels.
The point that may conceivably prove controversial is that it’s very much a post-colonial story, with Horwood fascinated by the status of Victorian London as the seat of the Empire, and how it exercised power around the world. It’s a subject the British can get pretty weird about – but rather than agit prop raving, Horwood offers a sense of how strange the connection between a foggy London and a wider world dominated by it is. He is intrigued with the idea of Imperial power – as exemplified by Holmes’ brother Mycroft (Patrick Warner) – as a confidence trick rather than an exertion of military force. It might offend the sort of person who won’t allow any critique of Britain’s past, but I think it’s neat to see a story that offers insight into what it was like living in London at the zenith of Victorian power, long before the nation’s ‘plucky underdog’ makeover.
As the story begins, Joshua James’s youthful, eccentric Holmes and Jyuddah Jaymes’ affable Afghan war vet Watson have recently made their names with the sensational ‘Study in Scarlet’ case. Unfortunately Holmes is simply far too unusual a character to do the sensible thing and go around cracking cases for cash. As the play opens he’s learning to box - and having a fairly bad time of it - while Watson tries to tempt him with various criminal cases from the day’s paper, all of which Holmes dismisses as ‘boring’. Finally, though, the case comes to them in the form of Mary (Nadi Kemp-Sayfi), a young mixed-race woman with a complicated ancestry that seems to have come back to haunt her in the strangest way: an annual delivery of hugely valuable gemstones.
It’s fascinated by Victorian London as the seat of the Empire
From there Horwood weaves an admirably widescreen adventure that offers a homage to Conan Doyle’s knotty plots, a hefty number of easter eggs, while grafting on a questing post-colonial sensibility and a few tricks nicked from Hollywood.
Holmes (the director) meanwhile gets to have his stylistic cake and eat it, with a show that’s both nostalgic and weird. His creative team - notably designer Grace Smart - crafts a sumptuous, hyperreal Victoriana: witness Holmes (Sherlock)’s dazzling sky blue silk togs. But at the same time the director’s icy eurohipster sensibilities get a thorough outing, most obviously via the gleefully baleful animal head-wearing supporting actors who dot the stage in surreal fashion, only occasionally meant to be actual animals.
At the heart of it though are the excellent leads. The frail-looking but intense James was born to play this Sherlock, a dazzling mind who threatens to be overwhelmed by his sense of the transactional meaninglessness of human existence, turning to opium to alleviate the boredom as much as anything. In some screens he’s an opiated mess, and yet firing out wild deductions like a Roman candle.
Watson is the genial yin to Holmes’s acerbic yang - but there’s a plaintive vulnerability to him, a desire to see the world as it ought to be that leads him into repeated collisions with the caustically cynical Holmes - his write up of the Study in Scarlet has annoyed his partner by making him look too good.
They’re a great, great double act. There are some faults here, not least the fact that there are moments where Horwood’s plot is so overstuffed with twists and turns that it can feel a bit like he’s just jangling keys at us. But for the most part the writing is sharp, the leads are superb, and Holmes’ direction gives the whole thing an engaging extra layer of weirdness. It’s a rare play of which I can confidently say that I’d love to see a sequel.
