DETECTIVE FICTION ON STAGE SHERLOCK HOLMES - THE LAST ACT At The Harlequin Theatre, Redhill 21 June 2001. Written by David Stuart Davies, directed by Gareth Armstrong for Jay Productions in association with Salisbury Playhouse. Cast: Sherlock Holmes - Roger Llewellyn Over the years there have been quite a few attempts to continue where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle left off. Peter Cushing reprised his wonderful star-turn as Holmes for the last hurrah that was THE MASKS OF DEATH. His old sparring partner from the Hammer days, Christopher Lee, made a fairly decent fist of it a few years back with two Euro mini series, INCIDENT AT VICTORIA FALLS and THE LEADING LADY, both of which showed up on video in the UK. Then of course there was Billy Wilder's THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES with Robert Stephens (and Lee again, this time as Mycroft), Roger Moore's 70s TV movie SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK, Michael Pennington's Holmes getting revived in 1980s Boston for THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, Michael Caine's drunken idiot Holmes in WITHOUT A CLUE and so on and so on and so on. So, given this highly crowded canon, a one-handed play called SHERLOCK HOLMES - THE LAST ACT is going to have to do pretty well to make any sort of impression. However, the approach is original in that in place of the light-hearted tone usually adopted when Holmes

iis brought back to us, this production adopts a much darker and altogether more depressing note. The thing starts with Holmes returning to 221B Baker street after the funeral of his old friend and biographer Dr John Watson. He is obviously much upset by this event and addresses the whole 90-minute monologue to Watson. The first act requires some patience since Holmes spends rather too much time summarising his already well-known casebook, finally going into a less textually vampiric explanation of his unhappy childhood. These unhappy reminisces are the author's invention, but rather unconvincing if at least generally on the right lines. Nevertheless, the strength of Llewellyn's acting carries it through and the concluding sequence where the great detective recalls Moriarty is frankly fantastic in both performance and staging. As the Second Act goes along, it rapidly becomes clear that Holmes own situation is pretty desperate. His deductive powers have deserted him and the solitary retirement in Sussex seems no compensation. The audience is thus treated to the spectacle of Holmes "shooting up", a pretty stark moment but one of undeniable theatrical power. As Holmes recollections reach his final encounter with Watson (for "His Last Bow" Conan Doyle's short piece of wartime propaganda) it becomes obvious that he's come to the end in more ways than one. But less ways than three. At the curtain call, as I was applauding away happily, I must admit to a tinge of guilt that I'd spent the first ten minutes of the play not being able to get past Roger Llewellyn's resemblance to Bob Monkhouse. All in all, a very worthwhile evening. Chris Denton There seems to be no website for Jay Productions, but there's loads of info about SHERLOCK HOLMES - THE LAST ACT at: http://www.ukarts.com/tour/theatrefr.htm

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