The Walnut presents Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective, adapted by Bill Van Horn

Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective adapts two of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories (“The Final Problem” and “The Adventure of the Empty House”) into a ridiculous, often laugh-out-loud funny farce. Here, Holmes (Harry Smith) and his trusted companion Dr. John Watson deal in endless silly wordplay; break into a patriotic ode to England; encounter Swiss mountaineers who quote The Sound of Music; and bring their case to a hilarious and delightfully meta conclusion I wouldn't dream of spoiling. All of it amounts to a breathless homage to the Holmesian myth that's more affectionate than jeering when it comes to this beloved literary icon.

Holmes comes home

The first act of Van Horn's play adapts Conan Doyle's “The Final Problem”, in which Holmes and Watson do battle with Professor Moriarty, “the Napoleon of crime” (Dan Hodge) and his minions, including his sister, Arabella Moriarty (Anna Bailey), and Sebastian Moran (Mary Martello). The conflict ends when Holmes and Moriarty, locked in combat, seemingly perish in the Reichenbach Falls. Doyle famously wrote “Problem” so he could at last kill off Holmes, whom he felt took too much time away from his other literary endeavors. He eventually revived the character in “Empty House” thanks to immense public pressure (and the call of his checkbook). Holmes, revealed to have faked his death, again teams up with Watson in order to bring Moriarty's empire down once and for all.

The secret sauce of Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective is the neat balance it walks between parody and adaptation. One wants to simply recite the litany of jokes, including the unintelligible Scotland Yard constable (Anna Bailey again), a running gag with dead pigeons, and Mrs. Hudson's (Martello again) sailor cousin (Dave Johnson) who can't shake due to his hook hands. There have been comedy versions of Holmes, like The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother and the regrettable 2018 Will Ferrell film adaptation. This is more akin to Airplane!, throwing out gag after dumb gag so you're laughing at the next one even if the previous bit didn't work.

Worthy of its title

Van Horn’s obvious love for the pipe-smoking detective and these stories is a pleasant surprise. There are apparent direct quotes from Doyle in the dialogue, and the portrayal of Holmes himself is shockingly faithful. Many modern versions of Sherlock play up his eccentricities, coldness, and bad behavior, regarding him as a character to be “fixed” or solved (looking at you, Sherlock). In contrast, Smith grasps Holmes's warmth, his sense of justice, and the innate passion for deduction and reasoning. Van Horn does play up Watson's more bumbling qualities for laughs, but there's real camaraderie and loyalty in their friendship. The fight between Moriarty and Holmes, well-executed thanks to Alyssandra Docherty's lighting and the choreography, is silly; the scene before with Holmes carefully writing his final note to Watson is not.

Both Smith and Van Horn do a great job embodying well-worn, beloved literary and screen icons, and the production as a whole matches them. Every actor is doubling, tripling, or quadrupling parts, and Bailey, Martello, Hodge, and Johnson take this in stride as they bring fun and verve to each goofy performance. The set by James Simms appropriately recalls 19th-century stage decoration, such as cardboard cutouts of the moon and 221 Baker Street's apartment building. Meanwhile, Amari Callaway (wigs/makeup) and Natalia De La Torre (costumes) have to hurriedly dress and change actors' hair and looks constantly, and do so with aplomb.

Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective is a comedy, and is still a stronger and more entertaining edition of Conan Doyle's beloved stories than many hit versions that have appeared on stage and screen. The opening-night audience agreed, laughing and applauding, especially at the ending that allows the story to go fully off the rails. So apply your reasoning skills: should you see this play? The answer is elementary, my dear reader.