\n Director Sean Holmes brings inventive zip and humour to a twisty adventure that roams from the Indian mutiny, to London Zoo and a chase across the half-built Tower Bridge.\n<\/p>\n
\n It starts with a movement sequence and a four-way blood pact to swipe an Empress’s jewels that’s swiftly betrayed.\n<\/p>\n
\n A scene from Sherlock Holmes by Joel Horwood at Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park. Directed by Sean Holmes. (Image: \u00a9Tristram Kenton)\n<\/p>\n
\n But although Joel Horwood’s mystery has admirable complexity, its reversals and tonal shifts can be hard to follow, and at times the action stops entirely for a talky bit to analyse Holmes’ and Watson’s motives.\n<\/p>\n
\n If the Empire is the subtext of Conan Doyle’s much-loved mysteries, Horwood grafts contemporary sensibilities on his Victorian characters by making it the enemy, and Holmes’ the ultimate outsider.\n<\/p>\n
\n A scene from Sherlock Holmes by Joel Horwood at the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park. (Image: Tristram Kenton)\n<\/p>\n
\n References to slavery and colonialism are laid on heavily, but the entire chaotic caper gets away with it thanks to a plot that trades enjoyably on the under-estimation of both women and ‘the natives’.\n<\/p>\n
\n There’s a comic chemistry between Joshua James’ childlike, cynical Holmes and Jyuddah Jaymes’ likeable Watson, who swiftly falls for feisty, illegitimate Mary (Nadi Kemp-Safyi.)\n<\/p>\n
\n The game’s afoot when she turns up to Baker Street with a tale of an estranged father and mysterious gifts of jewels as Grace Smart’s versatile circular set of a revolve beneath a theatrically swagged proscenium arch, becomes a river, bridge, gallows and gantry\n<\/p>\n
\n It leads our derring duo to a locked door mystery involving a civil servant, the death of an English aristocrat, the opium dens and poorhouses of the city, a boat chase up the river, and a quirky carnival complete with fire-eater, snake-charmer and creepy clown.\n<\/p>\n
\n To confuse things, someone has let the animals out of London Zoo and the hard-working ensemble playing multiple roles often lope into view sporting animal heads.\n<\/p>\n
\n Will Brown makes a sinister agent of the state as Lestrade, Patrick Warner is a comically cornered Mycroft, and Marcia Lecky a marvellously straight-talking Mrs Hudson.\n<\/p>\n
\n And the whole show gets added dramatic heft from being a stone’s throw from the iconic 221b Baker Street.\n<\/p>\n
\n Sherlock Holmes runs at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre until June 6.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Director Sean Holmes brings inventive zip and humour to a twisty adventure that roams from the Indian mutiny,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":965904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-965903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/965904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}