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Christmas Mysteries: A Sherlock Carol @MaryleboneTHLDN

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A mash-up of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes would seem an unlikely pairing. Yet it provides a surprisingly fun Christmas-themed adventure. These two Victorian tales (albeit separated by about 40 years) provide the basis for an inspired adventure at Christmastime that just also happens to turn out to be a murder mystery as well. With lavish costumes, a few spooky set pieces and some good old-fashioned stage trickery with lights and a lot of smoke machines, it is hard to resist. It returns to the Marylebone Theatre for Christmas after a run there last year.  The premise is that after Holmes sees off the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty, he is left adrift in London. People thought he was dead, and he might as well be. Disinterested in the misdeeds of other Londoners, Holmes has even given up on his friend Dr Watson. It's almost as if he has become a Scrooge. Or half a Scrooge, moping about shouting, "bah" in respon

Music: Sondheim at the Camden Fringe

The Camden Fringe is on at the moment which is an opportunity to see some strange and interesting new theatre... It also feels like an excuse to just "put on a show" in the Judy and Mickey kind of way... This was somewhat apparent with the Sondheim at 80 review I caught with Johnnyfox on Tuesday evening.

It finished its short run this week and there isn't too much you can complain about a bargain basement show like this. It is great that Camden is using its spaces in August to encourage this sort of thing. I can only assume that the "deer in headlights" looks of the cast members lessened for the later performances, and that they remembered all their lines...

My only other thoughts were that an evening of all Sondheim can be tough going... And that the show Passion should be left out of any anthology as it provides too many unintentional laughs listening to the songs out of context... I'll find out next month if this changes when watched in the correct dramatic context when the Donmar stages it...

Listen!

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