SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEVIL'S TALLYMAN
13/04/02 at the New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth.
The character of Sherlock Holmes is extremely tempting to writers, as there are no copyright issues in using him and he is extremely versatile in the manner in which he can be used. This can give creative types a false sense of security, however, because Holmes is also extremely difficult to do well. There have been numerous attempts to create new adventures of Conan Doyle's consulting detective, but few, if any, are as effective as the original stories themselves.
The Portsmouth based writer/director/actor Ian Wheeler's crack at adding to this genre was by no means disappointing, although it did fall into some of the traps that have waylaid many others. Thankfully, there was no Professor Moriarty, and yet Irene Adler (from one Conan Doyle short story, "A Scandal in Bohemia"), as so often before, was given a central role. Holmes wasn't pitted against Jack the Ripper, another major plus point, but his absence from most of the story will not have gone down too well with people expecting a more traditional adventure.
Indeed, since neither Sherlock Holmes nor The Devil's Tallyman, a clockwork computer, featured too prominently in the play, the title was somewhat misleading. In this play, Irene Adler and Doctor Watson investigate the murder of two men, including Irene's husband, and the theft of the McAllister Computational device, a thinking machine without a soul and thus known to the
Of the performances, plaudits must go to Michael O'Doherty, every inch a convincing Watson and Benjamin Taylor as an enjoyably sinister agent of "a foreign power". The supporting cast was nicely colourful, with co-director Steven Longhurst impressing in a small part as a bemused Scotland Yard inspector and Dayne Cornelius doing similarly well as a school-age suspect. The other co-director, Ian Wheeler, did some good work in a second-act dual role including the part of Holmes, here in the unfamiliar position of being involved in the mystery and leaving the investigating to others.
Ambitiously, this play attempted several innovations with both Sherlockian and Theatrical convention. The most successful of the former was a rather neat parallel drawn between Holmes and the Tallyman, and the best of the latter was the projection onto the back of the stage of a title sequence, explanatory captions and even a trailer for the company's next presentation, a new Doctor Who adventure called "Warsmith". It would be possible to pick some holes in the enterprise. To say for instance, that the first scene was a little long and a bit static, or that the solution to the mystery plays a bit fast and loose with the Conan Doyle version of the characters. Yet to do this would miss the point.
Sherlock Holmes and the Devil's Tallyman was a very creditable production and should further enhance the reputation of a small organisation that are doing some extremely interesting work.
Chris Denton
Related Links:
Our interview with Ian Wheeler
Our review of Doctor Who: Vox Dei
The Battered Suitcase Theatre Company
GC(uk) Email Advanced Site Search
 |
| Let Spyonit.com notify you when this page changes! |