The Hound of the Baskervilles -Review- People's Theatre

 The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The People's Theatre

27 October 2021


One of the joys of this reviewing gig is you never know what quite what to expect. I’m familiar with the story of the Hound of the Baskervilles, both the original book by Arthur Conan Doyle and several film adaptations. But I’ve never been to the People’s Theatre and I was intrigued how they would manage to present quite a complicated plot with a casts of just three actors. It seemed a major technical feat and I wondered how far they would deviate from the story.
In fact they stuck pretty closely to the story and hit all the major plot points. Where they deviated was in tone. This is not a spooky ghost-story-cum-mystery. It’s played mainly for laughs with a knowing wink towards theatrical tradition. In mood, it reminded me of Morecambe and Wise and Ernie’s plays, adaptations of the classics.
The plot for those who are unfamiliar is: the great detective Sherlock Holmes is visited by Dr Mortimer who tells him of of his friend Sir Charles Baskerville, who died of a heart attack, with a ghastly look of horror on his face and the footprints of a gigantic hound near the body. Sir Charles is descended from Hugo Baskerville who has brought down a curse on the family of a supernatural hound which cause the death of several members of the family. Holmes is sceptical of the curse but sends Watson back to Dartmoor with Mortimer and the newly arrived heir, Sir Henry Baskerville. Several spooky events ensue, including an escaped convict, a mysterious hermit out on the moor, warning letters, disappearing items of clothing, strange lights and noises. Watson meets up with the Stapletons, Jack and his sister, who warns Sir Henry to not venture out on the moor…
All of these scenes are covered in the play, and I am lost in admiration for the cast of three playing 16 characters between them. Roger Liddle alone plays eight, including sherlock Holmes. Moira Valentine, who plays Watson, the narrator of the original book, is on stage the entire time. Steve Robertson does some excellent comic turns as Sir Henry and his dropping trousers, and causes the cast to replay the entire first act in Fast Forward mode, at the beginning of Act Two.
Credit too should go to the set, lighting and sound techs, who managed to create quick-change locations: Holmes’ Baker St consulting rooms, a London bathhouse, cabs and trains, as well as Baskerville Hall and the constant back drop of the moors.
The script ingeniously exploits one of the plot threads, that Sherlock Holmes apparently remains in London, leaving Watson to report on the case from Dartmoor, in order to double up on the roles Roger Liddle can play. (Spoiler alert: Holmes is really in Dartmoor disguised as one of the other characters.) One departure from the original is that it is Watson and not Holmes who works out the solution to the mystery, recapping clues and backstory at breakneck speed. While it made for some excellent comedy, I felt they could have taken their time at this point: if you weren’t already familiar with the story, it would be hard to digest, and the comic effect would have been heightened if the scene had played out for longer.
Having said that, it was a technical theatrical tour de force and a jolly good romp. I would recommend reading the story or at least a plot summary before going to see it, otherwise some of the best jokes will be lost on you. A cleverly fun evening.
Hounds...plays until 30th November.

Gerry Byrne