Detecting a scrappy storyline

SHERLOCK HOLMES — THE BEST KEPT SECRET

Opera House, Manchester (to Saturday)
SHERLOCK Holmes is box-office once again, thanks to big-scale movies and hit TV retellings, so it was only a matter of time before someone stuck the great detective back on stage too.

This is a new story set some time after the Reichenbach Falls incident. Holmes, his back badly scarred, is a mess, retired from crime solving.

Only the news that his super-smart brother Mycroft has been accused of treason, and may hang, can get him back to work. Which is pretty much where The Best Kept Secret falls apart.

The story, involving an unbreakable code invented by his brother and thus proof of his guilt - since supposedly no one else could have read the encoded information - is rushed and scrappy.

Television scriptwriter Mark Catley glosses over the touches that make Holmes such an amazing character. His story resembles a TV script - down to the musical links and seamless transitions. But it is also half finished; a rough draft waiting for the details to be filled in and excesses excised.

This time the relationship between Holmes and Watson is roughed up too, with unnecessary hints of more than just friendship on Watson’s part, and Holmes finally succumbing to female charm.

And there’s the matter of tone: at the start we have a solidly dramatic exercise, but as the evening wears on, more and more humour creeps in, as does more than a little melodrama.

This is a pity, since the producers have gone to town on their West End-ready set, with cast iron girders and a couple of revolves and solid room sets that transform into prison, museum and 221b Baker Street with ease, and are atmospherically lit.

As for the acting, the script gets what it deserves: performers who aren’t quite sure whether the audience should be laughing or fearful.

Jason Durr tries hard and is mostly successful as Holmes, though is given some tortuously poor dialogue to negotiate; Watson (Andrew Hall) is little more than a foil, the sidekick role transferred to the Irene Adler figure (Tanya Franks). Andrew Langtree’s journalist character is a little annoying and Adrian Lukis at times almost RainMan-like as Mycroft. This man is the backbone of the Government? God help the Government...