Theatre review: Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery cranks up the comedy in a taut staging at the Gateway
Quick character switches and overt set changes add to the laughs in adaptation of classic tale
Gerry Mackay and Genevieve Fleming in Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery. Photo by David Cooper
Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery is at the Gateway Theatre to April 20
WHEN SHERLOCK HOLMES is called in to investigate Charles Baskerville's mysterious death, fears of a family curse—a terrifying hound rumoured to target Baskerville heirs—mount, until he uncovers a tangled web of deception. In Gateway Theatre’s tautly constructed production, based on Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel and directed by Barbara Tomasic, the sleuthing is as sensible as ever, but the antics are not. The adaptation embraces the pulpy mystery and cranks up the comedy, while managing to stay pretty close to the source material.
Leaning into the iconic character’s unparallelled intellect, relentless dedication to detective work, and slight aloofness, the adaptation banks on Sherlock Holmes’s enduring and classic appeal. With slicked-back hair and a tobacco pipe at hand, performer Genevieve Fleming takes on the Great Detective with a suave, unaffected demeanour. Hot on the trail and attempting to stay one step ahead of everybody else, you might try to outsmart the British sleuth, but the story is jam-packed with red herrings, dead-ends, and perilous encounters.
At the centre of this whirlwind of action are three lively performers who slip into multiple roles each, propelling the plot’s twists and turns forward. Noteworthy characterizations include Andrew Cownden as the perfectly accented and bookish Jack Stapleton; Melissa Oei’s creepy, vampiric, and deadpan Mrs. Barrymore; and Mack Gordon rapidly transitioning between the cheerful Texan inheritor of the Baskerville estate, Henry, and the dour Scotland Yard inspector Lestrade. The colourful characters encountered by Holmes and his sidekick appear with the drop of hat, the addition of a moustache, or a switch in accent. The pace is fast and the performances more than keep up.
Guiding us through it all is Holmes’s dependable crime-solving companion, Dr. Watson (Gerry Mackay), whose narration maintains the original voice from the novel, leading us from chapter to chapter within the play. Mackay portrays Watson as a composed and subdued contrast to the rest, effectively grounding the core of the show. It’s his voice (overpowered at times on opening night by the volume of the play's lush soundscapes) that places the action, introducing the moody countryside of the Devonshire moors, and the imposing stone walls of Baskerville Hall in all of their “dark and forbidding glory”.
Beyond the foggy, windswept, gothic grounds, various settings—from train stations and hotels to the busy streets of London and the famous apartment on Baker Street—are seamlessly conjured up by the show’s skilled design team, and sometimes (to great comedic effect) by performers entering and exiting with props and furniture, via a conveyor-belt-like moving stage.
Coupled with perfectly timed costume changes, Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery all works like a well-oiled machine, with plenty of entertainment for both devout fans of the detective and more casual enjoyers. 
Melissa Oei and Gerry Mackay. Photo by David Cooper
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