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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Secret Of Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Paul The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. Peter Egan and Robert Dawes here take on the pairing which Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke played in Patrick Garland's original production of this play in 1988. Dawes takes over from Philip Franks who played Watson to Egan's Holmes while Robin Herford's production was on tour earlier this year. Simon Higlett's richly detailed room in Baker Street is plush with polished desks and tiers of books, a twisted stair leading up to a railed gallery and all the clutter of Holmes investigative paraphernalia. London chimneys rise beyond its walls, their smoke can place us on a railway station or in the mists of a Swiss mountain. Its very appearance already suggests one is in for a carefully contrived treat while Matthew Bugg's eerie opening music and Matthew Eaglands atmospheric lighting add an extra air of mystery. This is not a dramatisation of a Sherlock Holmes case, though in its course he frequently applies his flare for observation and detection, rather it is a look at Holmes himself and his relationship with his personal Boswell. Its format is of Dr Watson, as in Conan Doyle's fictions, recounting the story of their meeting and subsequent developments. Daws is a warm and very natural Watson, a perfect foil for Egan's briskly pedantic Holmes. This great detective is a man hiding his own weaknesses, a man whose is increasingly the slave of his addictions and slipping out of control when marriage removes Watson from their shared chambers. Though this is not a thriller or a detective story but it does have a mystery to solve: What really happened at the Reichenbach Falls when Sherlock Holmes met his arch-enemy Moriarty? I'm not going to tell you, that would spoil things, though you may have worked quite a lot out yourself by the first act curtain. Holmes may be humourless and self-obsessed but that doesn't stop one from liking the master of disguise and finding this straight-faced comic partnership very funny. It's not a great play by any means but it is a lively piece of entertainment and I cannot imagine it being done better. Runs until 11th September 2010. Reviewed on tour, with a slightly different cast, by Allison Vale and Sheila Connor. Jeremy Brett. Jeremy Brett was Sherlock Holmes. The Definitive Sherlock Holmes. Even now he is still remembered as being the Great Detective. Brett (1933 - 1995) was an English actor who appeared on both stage and screen. He worked with Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre and in a film production of The Merchant of Venice , he starred as Audrey Hepburn's brother in an adaptation of War and Peace , he starred as Audrey Hepburn's Love Interest in My Fair Lady , he played d'Artagnan in a television series of The Three Musketeers , he played Basil Hallward in a television series of The Picture of Dorian Gray , but it is for Sherlock Holmes that he will be remembered. Between 1984 and 1994, Granada produced adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous stories with Brett in the title role. They were: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes : where he was joined by David Burke as a capable Dr Watson more in keeping with Doyle's depiction of him; The Return of Sherlock Holmes : Edward Hardwicke replaced Burke as Watson continuing the faithful portrayal of Holmes's sidekick. Included two feature length adaptations of the novels The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles ; The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes ; The Master Blackmailer : a feature-length adaptation of The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton ; The Last Vampyre : a feature-length adaptation of The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire ; The Eligible Bachelor : a feature-length adaptation of The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor (with bits of The Veiled Lodger thrown in); The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes : Brett's last series, which was marked by his drastically failing health; Brett and Hardwicke continued their roles on the stage for The Secret of Sherlock Holmes , written by Granada script-writer Jeremy Paul. The play ran from '88 to '89 at the Wyndham Theatre. Brett saw playing Sherlock Holmes as a challenge and was determined to produce the best portrayal of him that had been seen (his most prized possession was a 77-page book that he compiled himself documenting everything from Holmes's eating habits to the character's eccentric mannerisms). "Some actors fear if they play Sherlock Holmes for a very long run the character will steal their soul, leave no corner for the original inhabitant", he once said, but: "Holmes has become the dark side of the moon for me. He is moody and solitary and underneath I am really sociable and gregarious. It has all got too dangerous". David Burke originally played Dr Watson but left after the filming of The Final Problem in order to spend more time with his family. He was replaced, on Burke's own recommendation, with Edward Hardwicke who played him from The Empty House onward. In Brett's opinion, Hardwicke was the nicest man he ever knew. Unfortunately Brett suffered from manic depression after the death of his wife not long after filming Sherlock Holmes's own faked death in The Final Problem . During production of the remaining series, Brett's health declined, and he even collapsed on set and had to be admitted to hospital. When he was finally discharged, he was picked up from the hospital by Edward Hardwicke who took him out to lunch. Not long after filming The Cardboard Box , Jeremy Brett died at the age of sixty-one from heart failure. Edward Hardwicke spoke at his funeral where he called him his "dear friend" and said he was "greatly missed". The New York Times in their report of his death said that "Mr. Brett was regarded as the quintessential Holmes: breathtakingly analytical, given to outrageous disguises and the blackest moods and relentless in his enthusiasm for solving the most intricate crimes." Theatre / The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. The Secret of Sherlock Holmes is a play by Jeremy Paul, one of the script writers of the famous Granada series. The original production starred Jeremy Brett and his second Watson, Edward Hardwicke, in 1988 at Wyndham Theatre. In the summer of 2010, the play was revived at the Duchess Theatre in the West End. It was directed by Robin Hereford and starred Peter Egan and Robert Daws as Holmes and Watson, respectively. This two-man play is neither an adventure nor a whodunnit, but rather a tribute to the remarkable friendship of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It is one hour long and divided into two Acts: Act I covers the friendship from their meeting in A Study in Scarlet to Holmes's faked death in "The Final Problem", while Act II deals with the friendship strained by Holmes's deception, as well as the titular secret. The last remnant of the play exists in the form of an audio recording made by Brett's close friends. An amateur restoration of Act I can be heard here and Act II is here . This play provides examples of: Alternate Universe: Act II. Brutal Honesty: Holmes's confession. Watson is not happy. Byronic Hero: Holmes fits this beautifully and tragically. Challenge Seeker: The play really emphasizes this part of Holmes's personality. The Chessmaster: Holmes, oh so hard. Continuity Nod: Many of the original short stories are compressed into snippets to fit the time slot and keep the focus on the friendship. Impressively, Watson gets married (off-stage) to Mary Morstan this time around. Cursed With Awesome: Holmes's intelligence. This is actually only canonical, but it's played to near- Tear Jerker effect in the story. The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. The premise behind Jeremy Paul's 1988 play is reasonable enough – elementary, even. Since Sherlock Holmes possesses one of the more fascinating minds in literature, he is ripe for psychoanalysis. Not by Freud, however: the American novelist Nicholas Meyer had already imagined that scenario in his 1974 book The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Instead, Paul agrees with the egotistical Holmes that no one is more perspicacious than the detective himself, and so no one else is capable of exploring the darkest recesses of his troubled psyche. In direct addresses to the audience, and a final confrontation with Watson, Holmes gradually reveals himself as a man addicted to adventure, excitement and cocaine, but also subject to depression and delusion – someone with bipolar disorder, in effect. As an interpretation of the character, it's intriguing; as drama, however, it's flat. Paul's two-hander plays like a monologue at times, relying too heavily on narration, on telling and not showing. There is conflict – between Watson's empathy and sense of morality, and Holmes's selfish desire for sensation and cerebral challenge – but it makes for a psychological thriller curiously lacking in thrills. Those that do exist are undermined by director Robin Herford's smoke-and-mirrors approach, rendering the all-too-literal cliffhanger before the unnecessary interval, and Holmes's ultimate self-revelation, the stuff of Victorian melodrama. Herford is happier in the more genial sections of the play, in which Holmes and Watson bicker amicably and quote directly from Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories. Robert Daws is a sympathetic Watson, and Peter Egan has commanding moments as Holmes, but one deduces that this is more a novel than a play. During the Granada television series Jeremy Paul and Jeremy Brett collaborated on a Holmes play in which Brett starred alongside Edward Hardwicke as Dr.

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