8:33am Thursday 11th March 2010
By Jo Bayne
Last year Peter Egan and Philip Franks toured as Sherlock Holmes and his faithful Dr Watson, respectively, in The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was great fun and delightfully tongue in cheek.
Now the same two actors have reprised their roles, but the same sense of fun is missing.
There is nothing the matter with their performances. They are absolutely believable as the saturnine private detective with the cocaine habit, and his loyal assistant and chronicler.
There is great chemistry between them, but the story is very static.
It is very much a memoir of the Holmes/Watson relationship; their first meeting, deciding to share the famous rooms in Baker Street, and to work together.
The narrative embraces Holmes’ final battle with his nemesis Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland where both are assumed to have perished. Except no bodies are found.
The set is so terrific I’d like to live in it. And the big secret is… well, that would be telling. But it’s not startling enough to lift this rather pedestrian play.
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