Sherlock Holmes review: The game is afoot in Regent’s Park
When hailstones were crashing down around Regent’s Park ahead of press night for Sherlock Holmes, it did not take a genius to deduce that we might be in for a rather miserable evening. It is a brave London theatre that relies so heavily upon the weather.
But the skies cleared just in time for the curtain to rise on Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s newly installed rotating stage, leaving a freezing but atmospheric mist lingering around the extremities of the arena, a Pea Souper without the need for dry ice.
The action opens in colonial India, with a “native” slave bargaining for his freedom with a cache of priceless treasure. A deal is struck. A double cross is made. Then suddenly we’re in the more familiar surrounds of Victorian London, where we meet the eponymous detective clad not in a deerstalker hat and Inverness cape but a baby blue silk waistcoat and matching trousers.
This is not the Sherlock Holmes that lives in the collective imagination, rather a sulky young sybarite who’s partial to bouts of bareknuckle boxing and generous helpings of opium. Joshua James largely plays him for laughs, theatrically raising a finger as he makes his absurd deductions. I suspect Stewie from Family Guy was an inspiration for this childish, big-brained anti-hero.
A comic book version of Sherlock Holmes
There’s an air of vaudeville – even, dare I say it, panto – to the production that I initially found off-putting before settling into its silly but charming rhythm. This is a play in perpetual motion, everyone whizzing around that rotating stage, a dizzying montage of carnival acts and hot air balloons and exotic animals; there’s even an interweaving of Regent’s Park and its zoo into the action.
The story, by writer Joel Horwood, is billed as a “new mystery” (it blends elements of several of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels), taking place in Holmes’ early years, after he’s become a detective for hire and moved in with his trusty sidekick Dr Watson.
I could attempt to summarise the plot – missing treasure, a mysterious curse, stolen plans for some empire-threatening weapon – but it’s a chaotic, virtually incomprehensible affair. Horwood mimics Conan Doyle’s knack of dropping seemingly inconsequential nuggets into conversation, only for them to prove vital to the unravelling of the case – but actually picking up on them amid the breathless action would take a far superior mind to mine.
Still, that’s not really the point: it’s a romp, an excuse to indulge in a comic book version of Victorian England, a slice of Conan Doyle fan fiction that you’d have to have a heart of stone not to warm to, even as the temperature plummets.
• Sherlock Holmes is on at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until 6 June – visit the website here to book tickets