John Kearns, Humphrey Ker, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and David Reed in Sherlock Holmes and The Twelve Days of Christmas, © Pete Le May
Birmingham Rep’s new festive production is a madcap romp which brings supersleuth Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr Watson face to face with a Christmas killer.
Sherlock Holmes and The Twelve Days of Christmas brilliantly blends elements of the traditional Holmes detective tale with the craziness of pantomime and general festive cheer.
The show is written by Humphrey Ker and David Reed, whose love for Sherlock and the literary tradition of the independent detective shines through. Sherlock fans will love the countless references to well-known stories, quirks of the characters and the familiar settings. But they will also be taken on a murder mystery journey, which will leave them guessing until the very end.
When a series of actors are killed off mid-way through their performances, Holmes, Watson and the ever-perplexed Inspector Lestrade set off to discover who is bumping off the thespians. But they hadn’t counted on meeting the competing detective Athena Faversham or on seeing their own lives in danger.
Ker and Reed have plumbed the world of Christmas theatre to pile on the gags and references with glances towards Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the world of pantomime and even the Royal Variety Show. The script is consistently sharp and witty, and there’s no shortage of jokes aimed squarely at the audience – this is a Christmas show after all.
There are a few moments where it feels the writers have pushed it just a bit too far, with the tale losing its focus at the expense of a one-line gag. On press night, there was also a sense that the show still has time to grow, but then, with a run into mid-January, there is plenty of scope for it to fully find its shape.
The production features songs by the reunited blockbuster duo of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who display their usual flair in providing catchy tunes with clever lyrics that fit perfectly into the show and add colour. Orchestrated and arranged by John Rigby, the live music keeps it all moving along at a jolly pace.
The cast of Sherlock Holmes and The Twelve Days of Christmas, © Pete Le May
The cast are wonderful across the board. Ker’s Holmes is the epitome of Sherlock, egotistic and lacking empathy, brilliant but also blunt – so much so that he risks missing the plot because of his own self-belief. Reed’s Watson is fleshed out with plenty of past history, so he’s more than Holmes’ amanuensis.
Helena Wilson is a feisty Athena Faversham, who is more than prepared to take on the legendary detective Holmes. Margaret Cabourn-Smith supplies the humour as Mrs Hudson and a host of other characters, including the wise old crone who will only share what she knows for a fight or a snog.
John Kearns gives us a thoroughly likeable Lestrade, playing up the fact that he’s often the stooge bettered by Holmes, and Susan Harrison is the cutely chipper child urchin Ernie. Cameron Johnson ensures the pantomime dame is as exaggerated as she should be, and the rest of the cast take up a host of roles from opera singers to panto horses and police officers to dancing Christmas presents.
Directed by Phillip Breen and Becky Hope-Palmer, the production revels in its silliness. There are even moments when some of the cast themselves are at risk of cracking up.
Mark Bailey’s designs are packed with colour and imagination but also grounded in Conan Doyle’s fiction so that Holmes’ living room is just how we would expect it. The entire play is framed by theatre boxes and the grand curtain, emphasising the fact that we are all consciously watching a show.
Sherlock Holmes and The Twelve Days of Christmas will have audiences laughing out loud, but also racking their brains as they try to solve whodunnit. It’s a sparkling festive combination of familiar and surprise – a real Christmas cracker of a show.
