THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES
Touring (seen at Greenwich Theatre, London SE10) / Duchess
Theatre, London WC2
Latter production opened 17 April, 2007
*** / ***
To be sure, Sherlock Holmes is the world's most famous fictional
detective and this his most famous case, but nevertheless it seems a
mite bizarre for the entire population of the Baskerville kennels to
have descended on London at once.
My first trip was to see an almost straight adaptation (by Clive
Francis), which has been touring the country for some time and visits
London for a week towards the end of its itinerary. The central duo are
played by recognisable "names", Peter Egan as Holmes and Philip Franks
as Watson, with three other actors filling all the supporting roles.
Director Robin Herford was also at the original helm of The Woman In Black, which after 18
years is now the longest-running non-musical in the West End after The Mousetrap. His Holmes
production is very much in the same style: a small cast, a relatively
simple staging albeit with some visual effects, and judicious doses of
gentle humour leavening a fundamental fidelity to the atmosphere of the
original story.
Egan has an almost epicurean look about him as Holmes: not the kind of
man one would generally imagine shooting up a seven per cent solution
of cocaine. The addition of a moustache to the now greying, thickening
Franks turns his Watson into a clubbable middle-aged gent. He is
nothing like such a duffer as Nigel Bruce's Watson (the foil to Basil
Rathbone's near-definitive cinematic Holmes), but Franks pitches his
moments of puzzlement and his flawed deductions expertly. In contrast,
there is a feeling of smirking around some of Egan-as-Holmes's gags,
enough to raise suspicions about the bona
fides of the performance. Timothy Bird's set design places
nothing on stage but a few large sculpted piles of books and papers,
which are dragged around to serve as everything from the furniture in
221b Baker Street to a horse-cart. Most of the visuals are projected on
to a gauze across the stage, with some of the action taking place
behind it. Again, this is the same theatrical aesthetic that underpins The Woman In Black, but it feels
less successful here, possibly through familiarity.
I wondered, indeed, whether this Hound
was being groomed to take over from that show at the Fortune Theatre,
but it has been beaten into the West End by the comedy/clowning company
Peepolykus (pronounced "people like us"), whose production went down a
storm in Leeds earlier this year. They go further still in the economy
stakes, performing the entire tale with a cast of three: a Holmes, a
Watson and a Sir Henry Baskerville, "with other parts played by members
of the cast". Holmes is played by Basque performer Javier Marzan, a
decision which is mined for humour: after the interval, in response to
alleged complaints about the "dago's" thick accent, the trio reprise
the first half at breakneck speed.
I have long felt that I should be slightly more fond of Peepolykus than
I am. In their earlier years, their own obvious delight in their stage
confections – corpsing one another time and again – suggested to me
that they sometimes lost sight of the audience as being the key party
in a show's reception. Several years down the line, the corpsing seems
no more than simple enjoyment, shared with us rather than excluding us.
However, despite their inventiveness and dedication, they still seem
somehow less crisp performers
than they ought to be. This is highlighted by new recruit Jason
Thorpe's delicious physical skills: he gets hilariously engrossed in a
tango-cum-ballet pas de deux
with Marzan (who is in a dress at the time), demonstrating the kind of
physical intensity that should always be present if the (many,
enjoyable) gags are to be given the high definition they require for
maximum payoff.
What surprised me was the amount the two productions had in common,
from little touches such as the gag of miming a juddery cart-ride to
the simple fact that, despite all its parody and wackiness, the
Peepolykus adaptation covers the story in every bit as much detail as
Francis's version. Whatever your preferred tone, it seems there will
continue for a while yet to be curious incidents of the dog in the
night-time, six nights a week plus two matinées.
Written for the Financial
Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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