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Sherlock Holmes

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow

Four stars

 

The ongoing reboots of Arthur Conan Doyle’s genius detective has kept his creation on trend well into the twenty-first century. Jennifer Dick’s boutique stage version for Bard in the Botanics’ latest non-Shakespeare outing stays true to the forensic peccadilloes of Conan Doyle’s original while putting a feminist spin on things. 

 

Dick weaves together three stories; The Adventure of Abbey Grange, A Scandal in Bohemia, and The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. At the centre of these is Irene Adler, aka The Woman, the former actress and opera singer who left her mark on the Conan Doyle canon after getting the better of Holmes. 

 

As both seasoned Sherlockians and Wikipedia will tell you, however, Irene only ever appeared in one original Holmes story. That was A Scandal in Bohemia, first published in the Strand magazine in1881 as the first of 56 Holmes missives following two novels. Dick’ considerable liberty taking with her source material to make Irene a recurring character not only works, but her talent for reinvention provides extra-added intrigue to both her own story and her relationship with Holmes. 

 

The first tale finds Irene working as a maid who becomes chief witness to the murder of a drink fuelled wife beater. The second sees her move up in the world enough to be able to manipulate the fate of the womanising King of Bohemia. The third reunites Irene with Holmes and Watson to take on a vicious blackmailer who has already destroyed several women’s lives. 

 

The result is a captivating and whip-smart concoction that moves briskly over its ninety-minute duration in a manner as classy as the string based musical accompaniment and the furniture of Heather Grace Currie’s set. Seen up close in the Kibble Palace, the merry dance Holmes and Watson are led on by Irene sees the dynamic duo bumbling and fumbling around as Holmes lets his new nemesis off the hook several times over.

 

Stephen Arden makes a stoic and long suffering Watson, and Adam Donaldson’s Holmes is a hyper-smart if somewhat foppish sociopath who can’t stop Irene seeing through his disguise every time. James Boal, meanwhile, steps up first as the indefatigable Inspector Lestrade before morphing into assorted sailors, monarchs and blackmailers. 

 

All three play second fiddle to Rebecca Robin’s shape shifting turn as Irene, who champions womankind like some steam punk Valerie Solanis by way of Modesty Blaise. As the tension between Irene and Holmes simmers, the result is an unsolvable case of Sherlock in love as the great detective finally meets his match.  


The Herald, July 28th 2025

 

ends

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