Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes and his faithful sidekick Dr Watson have an affectionate tongue-in-cheek quality. But in Clive Francis's adaptation and Richard Baron's staging, the tongue-in-cheek teeters alarmingly towards fullblown spoof.
This is one of those productions that has had everything thrown at it and it still doesn't work satisfactorily. There is lots of design, lots of video, lots of stage smoke and even lots of Dr Watsons (three, to be precise), who every now and again morph into the faithful housekeeper Mrs Hudson, distressed damsels, victims and villains.
They do this rather well, but the real question is why they are doing it at all - presumably to try to disguise the fact that, however many little physical theatre tricks and however much creepy video footage you throw in the pot, it won't bubble any faster when the adaptation is as old-fashioned as this one.
There have been some creative marriages of film and theatre recently, including at this address, but the reliance on video for atmosphere and emotion is a cop-out here: if you wanted to see a good movie, you would have got the Basil Rathbone classic out of the video library.
It is reasonably entertaining, there are a couple of very good gags, and the actors acquit themselves rather well considering they spend quite a lot of time ensuring they don't trip over each other. A pity Nottingham made the elementary mistake of getting mired down in the fripperies rather than just telling the story well.
· Until September 25. Box office: 0115-941 9419 .
