The whole sleuth, nothing but the sleuth?

REVIEW: Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, January 13 to Saturday, January 17).

Showtime! stars rating:  *  *  *  *

BY the looks of things, number 221B Baker Street has most certainly seen better times.

Quite why writer and director Nick Lane of Blackeyed Theatre has reimagined one of London’s most famous addresses as the shabby abode of the celebrated sleuth of legend is a bit of a mystery.

Everything seems so down-at-heel, what with the faded and patchy paintwork, a disappointing absence of Edwardian clutter, and the general moth-eaten fustiness of the whole place.

Even housekeeper Mrs Hudson, played with a shrill and well-starched efficiency by Pippa Caddick, can’t seem to disturb the dust on fixtures and fittings that are arguably well past their second-hand sell-by date.

Holmes also seems to have departed from his pompous norm. Instead of the unspeakably brilliant know-all, wafting imperiously about in a deerstalker and puffing away on his favourite Meerschaum, we are presented with what appears to be a sort of 1960s chalk dust-impregnated grammar schoolmaster with a penchant for humiliating adolescent boys because he can.

The roles seem to have changed, too. Take Doctor Watson, traditionally portrayed as the hero-worshipping prefect with a crush on Holmes’ head boy, to further stretch the grammar school analogy to its absolute limit.

This time, he’s played with delicious superiority by Ben Owora, a master of narrative and clearly sussing out what’s unfolding, long before Mark Knightley’s at times blustering old fiddle string scraper.

Usually, Holmes is the smirking genius and Watson the simpering sycophant, whose parents probably paid for him to go to a good school after he failed the matriculation exam. Sorry – I did say I’d wrap up the grammar school thing.

Be that as it may, a chap by the name of Cadogan-West has been found dead beside a rail line, and Holmes is wheeled in to back up the clueless planks at Scotland Yard.

True to form, Yard plod Inspector Lestrade (Gavin Molloy) is soon lost in a fog of Cockney cliche before you can say gawd blimey guvnor, and so it’s not long before the legendary - and now perhaps over-rated cerebral skills of Holmes - are brought into play.

Of course, Nick Lane’s intellectually liberated Watson soon gets a handle on who might be responsible for the dastardly deed, while the boss seems to aimlessly thrash about in a nylon fishing line tangle of theories.

Meanwhile, a Quality Street-type assortment of the period’s upper class cliches pop in and out, all played with tireless harrumphing high energy by Robbie Capaldi and Eliot Giuralarocca, who multi-task their varied roles with all the gusto of the good old days when people knew their place.

And so… to Professor Moriarty. Well, Gavin Molloy deftly doubles up as the international criminal mastermind with a finger in every putrid pie, the kind of guy who these days would be running a worldwide AI company and desperate for Keir Starmer’s nod and wink for him to set up shop in the north of England.

There’s no denying the eternal popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal creation, because the opening night at the Festival Theatre this week was attended by a full-to-capacity crowd.

But in vain did I search the crowd for deerstalkers and Norfolk hacking jackets. And dash it all sir, the chap sat in front of me was actually wearing shorts. Yes! Not a good idea on a sub-zero January night.

Because as Holmes might have said – but never actually did in Conan Doyle’s original stories - that’s elementary, is it not?