A hoot! Two Sherlock Holmes gems for Christmas

A Sherlock Holmes Christmas
at The Source, The Old Courthouse, Oxford
from December 9 to 21

By Jon Lewis

Two Gems for Christmas

Wild Goose Theatre has served up two Christmas crackers with their show A Sherlock Holmes Christmas containing two adaptions by Billy Morton of Arthur Conan Doyle’s short stories The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle and the Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, both published in 1892 in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Morton, who directs, and acts the part of Holmes’ faithful biographer and sidekick, Dr John Watson, turns both stories into affectionate tongue-in-cheek satires, mocking nineteenth century attitudes and finding comic innuendos in Conan Doyle’s descriptive language.

The venue, The Source, is, appropriately for a play about justice, part of Oxford’s Old Courthouse – a very small space - one reason why the show sold out its run there. The other reason is that, like War Horse at the much larger New Theatre, it is not competing for the audience of children and their families. Morton has added a clever framing device for both stories – essentially making them plays within a play – with Watson, his wife Mary (Beth Burns) and Sherlock Holmes in disguise as a certain Blessington (Craig Finlay) having dinner with an American businessman, Gerald Sandeford (Cyd Cowley) and his wife Clarissa (Matilda Morrissey). The reason for the gathering becomes apparent at the finale.

Both stories, written by Watson for publication, are well-known by the dinner party attendees and are performed by them as a form of entertainment, with Watson and Blessington as Holmes, playing themselves. There’s some amusing repartee as Watson coaches Blessington to speak like Holmes, playing out a fun charade for the benefit of the Sandefords who have never met Holmes. Contemporary feminist ideologies emerge cheekily from the wives who are forced by Conan Doyle’s cast of characters to play a multitude of male roles in the role-reenactments.

There are similarities between the tales that involve stolen gems. The villains, and the suspects, are a rum lot but Holmes allows them to escape the long arm of the law to save public embarrassment for the victims of the crimes. No cliché is left unturned, catchphrases borrowed liberally from other stories and from popular culture. A hoot.