BWW Reviews: THE REVENGE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES!, Hoxton Hall, April 12 2013
As conceits go, resurrecting Sherlock Holmes after his final battle with Professor Moriarty is a good one - especially today, with Holmes as popular as ever. If that was a safe bet, director Luke Fredericks took a bigger chance when he placed Leslie Bricusse's late 80s work in a Victorian music hall setting. Happily, the book's slightly uneasy blend of the comic and tragic fits that environment perfectly, as does the magnificent venue - Hoxton Hall. With the fourth wall disposed of before the curtain rises, the actors have an enormous amount of fun with the audience and nobody can get too sniffy about an icon like Sherlock Holmes behaving with something less than his usual hauteur.
Holmes, bored with no adversary worthy of his talent and just perplexed friend Dr Watson, unlucky housekeeper Mrs Hudson and envious Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade to get him from one hot toddy to the next, is suddenly energised by a suspicion that Moriarty may also have survived the torrents of Reichenbach Falls. The key to engaging his great foe once more appears to lie with beautiful clever Bella Spellgrove, who soon proves more than a match for the deducing detective.
There's some lovely puppet work, energetic dancing and even a bit of magic in the mix, as we go from Baker Street to Billingsgate, from dowager duchesses to duckers and divers, from prison bars to public bars in Olde London Towne. Tim Walton vests Holmes with just the right level of arrogance and charm to tempt Leonie Heath's smart cookie Bella, while John Cusworth gives it plenty of "By Jove, Holmes" as Watson and enjoys a spectacular setpiece in a morgue with Stephen Leask's pathologist Boffy Martingdale.
Good though the principals and company are, the show is shamelessly stolen by Andrea Miller as wisecracking, frustrated Mrs Hudson, and Amanda Goldthorpe-Hall, in glass-shattering voice as soprano and Morticia Addams lookalike Mrs Moriarty. Both turns are wonderfully funny and anarchic but never quite step outside their roles - well, almost never.
Morphic Graffiti has lost none of its ambition after last year's marvellous Jekyll and Hyde, delivering a big musical that uses every inch of a unique and intimate space. If the plot feels a little stretched over more than two hours, the comic turns and the wonderfully inventive dance routines (by choreographer, Lee Proud) make for a splendidly entertaining show. Though we never stop caring for Bella and Holmes, we also never lose sight of the fact that it's a right old London knees-up and no mistake, guvnor!
Morphic Graffiti's The Revenge of Sherlock Holmes! continues at Hoxton Hall until 10 May.
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