The Secret of Sherlock Holmes

Synopsis

The Secret of Sherlock Holmes is a journey into the mind of Sherlock Holmes and his relationships with the two most significant people in his life - his greatest friend, Dr Watson, and his deadly enemy, Professor Moriarty. Through his friendship with Dr Watson, Holmes reveals his driving forces and ambitions but also exposes his demons and fears. Watson discovers that behind the greatest detective mind of all time there is, after all, a heart. Following Holmes’s most infamous encounter with his nemesis Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls, Watson’s loyalty and friendship are tested to the very limit and Holmes comes to understand his own complicated nature and deep need for friendship.

Our Review:

Simon Edge - 21 July 2010

Arthur Conan Doyle’s pipe-smoking detective featured in four novels and 56 stories. In The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, recently on tour and now hastily booked into the Duchess Theatre to fill the hole left by the ill-fated The Fantasticks, Jeremy Paul adapts both all and none of them.

In the original 1988 production of this shortish two-hander, the part of Holmes was taken by Jeremy Brett, one of the great screen interpreters of the role. Here the deerstalker and Meerschaum are passed (or they would be if designer Simon Higlett had not dispensed with them in favour of drawing-room attire) to Peter Egan. He plays the famous occupant of 221b Baker Street with cuff-shooting, hand-on-hip panache and just a touch of stentorian camp, before descending into drug-addled derangement.

His Watson is Peter Daws, a stolid, dignified figure with a demeanour of middle-class Pooterism. The fact that he does not remove his tweed coat for the duration of th...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

barters - 22 September 2011:

The most dull play I have who ever seen...

Read more and add your own review