A Sherlock Carol – Marylebone Theatre, London

Writer and Director: Mark Shanahan

Something strange is happening in a theatre just around the corner from Baker Street. Aside from two of Victorian Britain’s most famed characters, Sherlock Holmes and Ebenezer Scrooge, being thrust together in a new story, these literary heavyweights are not quite as we remember them.

Holmes (Ben Caplan) is a changed man. His arch nemesis, Moriarty, is dead and Holmes has given up detecting and fallen into major funk. Ebenezer Scrooge (Kammy Darweish), on the other hand, having lived a number of years in blissful happiness following his encounter with the ghosts, has been murdered.

In Shanahan’s seasonal whodunit, the worlds of A Christmas Carol and Sherlock Holmes come crashing together like never before. Holmes, in his rage-inducing sulk, is even more curmudgeonly than ever and has even broken ties with his dear friend Watson (Richard James). Tiny Tim Cratchit (Devesh Kishore) is now a doctor, running a home for orphans, and is a friend to his benevolent benefactor, Scrooge.

Despite giving up detecting and basically being London’s latest humbug, Holmes is persuaded to investigate the murder of Scrooge. His disdain for detecting, Christmas and his fellow human beings gets him a visit from the ghost of Scrooge who shows him his Christmas past, the present he cannot see and the possible future outcome of his life.

This mashup of stories is wonderfully inventive and, overall, rather successful. The first act, which focuses on setting up the characters and the story, feels slow and rather laboured. A bit of editing and snappier direction could easily fix that. The second act fares much better, and much of that is down to Darweish’s larger-than-life, overwhelmingly happy Scrooge. There’s a wonderful lightness to his performance that makes his scenes zip along with glee. The big issue is that he’s not on stage anywhere near enough. There’s additional comic light relief from James giving us panto-dame realness as Scrooge’s housekeeper.

And these two characters highlight the underlying problem with the show. It’s sort of stuck between two elements. On the one hand, with Scrooge and the housekeeper, it’s playing to an almost panto-style production, but with the murder mystery element, it turns into something verging on gothic and the two don’t quite marry well.

Shanahan’s direction is perfectly fine. The cast seems to be delighting in what they’re doing. Holmes and Scrooge aside, the remaining cast members each play a multitude of characters, and there’s a real joy in watching their various transformations.

The ending of the play is pretty much what you expect, though there’s a little twist in Scrooge’s murder that provides for a nice surprise. There are a few Christmas carols throughout and you’ll leave the show with a warm sense of seasonal cheer.

This production is a revival of a production from last year. This could become a new Christmas tradition, and that would be no bad thing. All the best parts of A Christmas Carol with a murder mystery to boot… what’s not to love? Not much, actually.

 Runs until 7 January 2024