Thoughts on The Hound of the Baskervilles
Yesterday I went with my mum to see The Hound of the Baskervilles at the Court Theatre, which used to be in our beautiful Arts Centre until it was rendered unstable by the earthquakes, and is now situated in a barn-like structure on the other side of town (a stylish barn though). It was my first time visiting since the quakes more or less decimated the city’s cultural centre, and so it was nice to finally experience some theatre after so long.
Though as you can probably tell from the poster, it wasn’t exactly serious theatre. Directed by Melanie Camp, the play is a spoof of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous Sherlock Holmes mystery, though I was surprised by how faithful it was to the source material. It was like watching a straightforward adaptation of the story with funny jokes strewn throughout, but had everything you’d expect: Doctor Mortimer appealing for help, Watson being sent to the moor while Holmes goes in disguise, Miss Stapleton trying to warn off Sir Henry, and Sherlock realizing Stapleton’s motivation due to his resemblance to the portraits in Baskerville Hall.
Sadly, there was no small Chihuahua playing the part of the great hound as the posters suggested (I wasn’t really expecting it, but I’ll admit I was a little hopeful), and instead the actors simply mimed fear whenever they heard the snarling sound-effects. The set design was wonderful, with the moorlands as the main backdrop (with the lighting projecting a moon onto the wall) and various fireplaces and picture frames dropped/pushed in and out to denote interiors. As mum informed me, designer Julian Southgate is actually the brother of my father’s cousin’s partner. Four degrees of separation and all that.
It wasn’t what I’d call hilariously funny, but it was consistently amusing, with the humour based around cross-dressing, mimicry, funny voices, slapstick, and the fact that only three actors played a variety of parts. And of course, plenty of homoeroticism, though strangely enough most of it was between Watson and Sir Henry. That said, many a JohnLock shipper would have enjoyed Sherlock’s genuine declaration of love to Watson at the end of the show, in response to Watson’s own outpouring earlier in the play when he thinks Sherlock has been killed.
It’s always funny though to see (or rather, hear) what other people laugh at. Everyone has a different scene of humour, and there were times when certain bits made me smile, but other people laugh uproariously. My biggest laugh came when Holmes/Watson met Sir Henry for the first time and told him they were expecting a Canadian accent. He cheerfully responds: “Yes...I can’t do one.” As for mum, she was getting quite loud when in the second act the performers became outraged at a Tweet that had been circling, complaining that the pacing was too slow. So they did the entire first act all over again - twice as fast. And you can imagine that with only three actors playing a multitude of characters, there was quite a frantic rush to change costumes.
So a nice night out despite the awful weather. If you’re in Christchurch it runs until the 17th of May, so be in quick if you want to catch it.