Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear
Theatre Royal Bath
MOST people remember Sherlock Holmes not because they have read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories about the great detective, but having seen the original and many repeats of the TV series starring Jeremy Brett, in the title role, and Edward Hardwicke, who replaced David Burke as the loyal Dr Watson. They are indeed a hard act to follow – along with William Gillette, who introduced the character to American theatre audiences at the end of the nineteenth century, and Basil Rathbone, whose iconic portrayal, supported by Nigel Bruce’s bumbling Watson, survived a series of indifferent modernised Hollywood versions of the stories, the most outstanding Holmes and Watsons to be seen on stage screen and TV.
Bobby Bradley and Joseph Derrington take on the formidable task of recreating the characters for Blackeyed Theatre and, in addition, also between them portray three other characters in Nick Lane’s adaptation. They also, unlike those outstanding John Hawkesworth TV productions have to sustain the characters for two and a half hours (including an interval) compared to the usual one hour length of the TV adaptations.
The story of a murder in a country house and its links to a much earlier clash between the notorious Irish American secret society The Molly Maguires and the Pinkerton detective agency, is indeed a wide ranging one, and as adapted here needs every one of those one hundred and fifty minutes in which to evolve. Trying to do so with just five actors, including Blake Kubena, Gavin Molloy and Alice Osmanski, who portray the other fifteen characters in the story, tends to muddy the waters a little rather than clarify matters, despite helping to keep the action flowing at a pace.
There are too many occasions when Bobby Bradley is forced into delivering a lengthy explanation of Holmes’ thought process, and sudden reversals in time leave you floundering for a moment as to who is who, and how the two stories are going to eventually merge into one. Joseph Derrington certainly puts in a shift and a half, acting as narrator and creating an admirable cringing jelly of a bullied Molly Maguire accountant, to go with his ideally pitched Dr Watson.
In-between the two stories there also has to be room for the personal relationship between Holmes and Watson to undergo, because of Holmes’ thoughtless arrogance, an almost complete breakdown. Adaptor and director Nick Lane really was asking a great deal of, not only his two leading actors, but all the cast, to draw clear pictures of the twenty characters involved in the story. The thought arises that had he been faced with presenting the story in the tighter frame of a TV episode, or even given the luxury of two enjoined episodes, and a bigger cast list, the adaptation would have been sharper, delivered with greater pace, by this talented team of actors.
It would be fascinating to see what this team would make of a more classic Sherlock Holmes tale, one which concentrated more on the great detective rather than other characters in the story.