'Sherlock Holmes' review — the great detective comes home in an ambitious but chaotic adaptation

Read our review of Sherlock Holmes, based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, now in performances at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to 6 June.

Summary

• Sherlock Holmes comes to Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
• This new stage adaptation is loosely based on The Sign of Four
• Joshua James and Jyuddah Jaymes effectively convey Holmes and Watson's bromance

There’s probably never a time when there isn’t a Sherlock Holmes-themed play running somewhere in the world. However, Joel Horwood’s new adaptation, loosely based on The Sign of Four, marks the first time that Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective has appeared at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, a stone’s throw from his 221B Baker Street residence. The production opened on an unsettled day of sunshine, showers and hailstorms, and, while the rain did hold off in the evening, Sean Holmes’s production has a similarly chaotic vibe.

The action opens a long way from Baker Street with a contemporary dance routine (choreography by Charlotte Broom) that leads to a mutiny in India. In London some 30 years later, Dr Watson has published his first book, A Study in Scarlet, and he and his sort-of bestie Sherlock Holmes are looking for their next case. In comes Mary (a plucky Nadi Kemp-Sayfi), the illegitimate daughter of a British officer and an Egyptian woman, with information about a jewel conspiracy. Watson is immediately smitten, but Mary is quickly arrested for the murder of one of her late father’s former comrades and sentenced to death.

The narrative is frustratingly frantic, heavy on shouty exposition and with few witty lines, taking in political revolutions, stolen government documents, jail breaks, drug-addled sequences, and escaped zoo animals, with little opportunity to breathe, let alone grip with its storytelling. It attempts to combine elements of an eccentric romp, a grittier Guy Ritchie-esque take on crime and punishment, and avant-garde theatre (ensemble members wear animal heads), which never quite gel. Set designer Grace Smart provides a crumbling proscenium arch with an overhead platform that’s used like a climbing frame.

As our guide through the mayhem, Jyuddah Jaymes is a dapper Dr Watson in his natty suit (co-costume designers Smart and Lisa Aitken do a good job showing just how colourful the fashions of Victorian Britain were). Joshua James’s Holmes, dressed in sky blue, is arrogant, athletic, and hopelessly drug dependent. In the quieter moments, James and Jaymes effectively convey the pair’s complicated bromance. The supporting actors struggle to distinguish themselves as their roles are wafer thin, and the multi-roleing is more confusing than clever.

A critique of the British Empire is embedded throughout. The second half features a half-hearted sideshow of “exotic” humans performing circus tricks, which serves little purpose (the Open Air Theatre’s version of The Secret Garden in 2024 – another text steeped in imperialism – examined race, empire and disability in a way that was really eye-opening and without preaching). Watson, a Black British man in this version by design, has benefited from scholarships that have given him certain advantages, and he is the object of critical empire-splaining by the white Holmes.

It all gets very meta at the end, and the final twist won’t mean anything to anyone with no prior knowledge of Holmes’s world. The world’s greatest detective certainly deserves to return to Regent’s Park at some point, but in a more satisfying adaptation. A rare misfire for the loveliest venue in London.

Sherlock Holmes is at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to 6 June. Book Sherlock Holmes tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Sherlock Holmes (Photos by Tristram Kenton)