For many years now, Damian Cruden has directed the merry anarchy that is the York panto (written by and starring one of the grandest of dames, Berwick Kaler). With this new production it looks as if, for the summer season, he is looking to develop a similarly heightened theatrical form featuring some of the same ingredients (including the panto’s delicious long-term baddie, David Leonard).
Conan Doyle’s famous 1902 story is here reimagined in Victorian popular-theatre style with song, mime, dance, shadow puppetry and no small skill by six actor-musicians (including musical director Rob Castell). Chapter-scenes are introduced by a compere as if they were music-hall numbers. A chase is raced through the auditorium.
Story embellishments devised by the company include a Brain-O-Graph Spectrometer that projects Holmes’s client’s thoughts on to a screen (and is powered by Watson, pedalling furiously) and the sinister serving-couple at Baskerville Hall explaining their sneaky behaviours in a speedy, Italian opera-aria medley. This is sung by Joanna Holden (slyly hilarious in this and so many more roles) to accompanying masked miming by Leonard (fiendishly maximising the impact of minimal movement – in sharp contrast to his languid Holmes), while, at their feet, Elexi Walker’s ever-eager Watson strugglingly unfurls banner-stencilled subtitles.
Overall, the action is, as yet, rather bogged down by a patchy dramaturgy (Richard Hurford), and by imaginative but dynamic-slowing designs (Mark Walters) and effects. But, then, it takes time to build a seasonal staple (Kaler’s panto approaches its 38th year); if this is a first, the game’s afoot!
