At first, you assume Lesley Hart’s play is a straight adaptation of A Study in Scarlet, the first of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels about Sherlock Holmes. True, there is something of the National Theatre of Brent about the enterprise; in Marc Small’s outdoor production, it is down to just two actors to play not only the consulting detective and his sidekick, John Watson, but also an assortment of coppers, kids and corpses. It is funny in its overweening ambition – blood-like tomato ketchup and all.
It does make a decent stab at telling the story, though. This is the one about the body found in Brixton, the word “rache” written on the wall and the ring that lures the possible culprit.
