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Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament

Online via www.sherlockimmersive.com

Reviewed – 23rd February 2021

★★★★

“a hugely enjoyable alternative to bringing audiences together during the pandemic”

At a time when every evening feels the same, it becomes increasingly difficult to find ways of focussing on our direction and knowing where to go or what to do. Particularly when the road maps we are handed are either vague, or else they just point us towards a destination that seems too far away. It is refreshing, then, to be handed, on a silver platter, something a bit different. ‘Les Enfants Terribles Theatre Company’, known for immersive productions such as “Alice’s Adventures Underground” and “Marvellous Imaginary Menagerie” have resourcefully adapted their unique style of storytelling for the online age we have been forced to enter during this past year.

“Sherlock Holmes – An Online Adventure” has evolved from a live version of a similar previous production; “The Game’s Afoot” at Madame Tussauds in 2016. In this new online experience, the audience is invited into a virtual world to become the joint protagonists in what is best described as a mix of board game and murder mystery. Forced to go online by the pandemic, this is an innovative way of keeping creatives active and people engaged in the theatre world, even if the lines are blurred between ‘theatre’ and ‘game show’.

The show is subtitled; “The Case of the Hung Parliament”. Sherlock Holmes had been called away to solve another case, out in some indeterminate wilderness, so Dr Watson is left in charge. It is far from ‘elementary’ to Watson, so he recruits us as private detectives to help him solve the case. And we have just over an hour in which to crack it.

The Home Secretary, The Foreign Secretary and the Lord Chamberlain, have all been found hanging, in their own chambers. Each victim died on their birthday, and on that day had received a card with a mysterious quote written in it. The Prime Minister, it appears, is the next on the list of victims. Watson (a thoroughly convincing portrayal by Dominic Allen) briefs us all with a list of suspects before we collectively go off in search of clues. Oliver Lansley, the Artistic Director of Les Enfants Terribles, has said, in a recent interview, that “the fun of a whodunnit is usually not the answer; it’s the journey”. If you embrace the show with that spirit, then you won’t go wrong. The clues are sometimes hopelessly obscure but, on Zoom, we confer and throw theories into the pot, seeing things through different eyes. As Holmes famously quoted: “When you have eliminated the impossible; whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

The team have joined forces with the virtual reality company LIVR to create a 360° world in which we search for the hidden clues. It is a kind of adult version of the ‘Secret Path Books’ you would read as a child in which the outcome is determined by the choices you make. We have the chance to interview the suspects too and, before we point the finger and name the accused, Sherlock himself (Richard Holt) beams onto our screens guiding us towards a unanimous verdict. “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact”. Time is running out, so our scrambled minds reach a majority decision before Holmes tells us we are right. Or wrong.

There is nothing deceptive about the intentions of this company to provide a hugely enjoyable alternative to bringing audiences together during the pandemic. That they succeed is an obvious fact.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography courtesy Les Enfants Terribles

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament

Online via www.sherlockimmersive.com

Last ten shows reviewed by Jonathan:

Rent | ★★★★★ | Online | November 2020

Right Left With Heels | ★★★★ | Online | November 2020

Ute Lemper: Rendezvous With Marlene | ★★★★★ | Online | November 2020

Salon | ★★★ | Century Club | December 2020

The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk | ★★★★ | Online | December 2020

The Dumb Waiter | ★★★★ | Hampstead Theatre | December 2020

The Pirates Of Penzance | ★★★★★ | Palace Theatre | December 2020

The Elf Who Was Scared of Christmas | ★★★★ | Charing Cross Theatre | December 2020

A Christmas Carol | ★★★ | Online | December 2020

Snow White in the Seven Months of Lockdown | ★★★★ | Online | December 2020

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Kleist’s The Prince of Homburg, written around 1810, is a play shot through with ambiguity and altered states. It was also seen, at the time of its creation, as a direct challenge to the authority of the ruling classes. Now recognized as one of the masterpieces of German theatre, the play is rarely seen on British stages, and not just because of the difficulty of rendering this work into English. Neil Bartlett’s translation, however, does a fine job of capturing Kleist’s unique energy of expression and style. So what The Prince of Homburg is actually about? In many ways, the play is essentially unknowable. But on the face of it, it is a story about a soldier whose response, after being tricked into a waking dream where he is crowned with a wreath of victory, is to promptly go into battle, disobey his orders, and—win a great victory for his side.

After the battle (often the end of the story in a more conventional play) is where this drama really begins. Kleist sets the audience an intriguing puzzle: since the Prince did not know whether he was awake or dreaming when he was crowned with the victor’s wreath, can he be held responsible for disobeying orders to achieve the dream? Is his commanding officer, the Elector, really to blame, since it was he who set up the whole scene for his own amusement? This enlightened despot disingenuously argues that he must follow the law when the courts sentence Homburg to death, but then the officers in his army rebel. When the Princess Natalie, who has fallen in love with Homburg, makes an impassioned plea for her lover’s life—it is not her emotions that carry weight with the Elector, but her cleverly nuanced argument that he will look bad if he allows a man of honour to be executed for following his heart. At this point the Elector caves of course, but sets up a poison pill for Homburg. The Prince must now decide whether to make the expedient argument to save his life, or do what a man of honour would do, which is to sacrifice himself willingly for his country.

Kleist pulls off a remarkable sleight of hand with this material, managing all these reversals of fortune in a way that undercuts expectations, while paradoxically heightening the audience’s experience through the dramatization of highly ambiguous dream states. In these states, the characters confront all the big stuff like life and love; death and immortality. Coupled with crafting a language uniquely suited to these dramatic innovations, Kleist engages the our imaginations, and our sense of what is possible in the theatre. The Prince of Homburg is like Hamlet in this regard, in that the more we engage with it, the greater it becomes.

Júlia Leval, freely adapting and directing this production of The Prince of Homburg, has come up with some innovative ideas for casting and staging. The Prince is played by Lucy Mackay, a fine actress, but lacking the experience for such a difficult role. Most of the cast (recently graduated from LAMDA) also seems rather adrift in the stormy waters of Kleist’s rhetoric, though Will Bishop is a confident Elector. A pared down set designed by Zoe Brennan has some beautifully ironic touches—a small bush for the laurel tree that Homburg uses to build the wreath for example, and a small white house that stands in for palaces and churches as well as a throne. Alistair Lax’s sound design helps to heighten the dream sequences.

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

Online via www.sherlockimmersive.com

Reviewed – 23rd February 2021

★★★★

“a hugely enjoyable alternative to bringing audiences together during the pandemic”

There is nothing deceptive about the intentions of this company to provide a hugely enjoyable alternative to bringing audiences together during the pandemic. That they succeed is an obvious fact.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography courtesy Les Enfants Terribles

Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Hung Parliament

Online via www.sherlockimmersive.com

Last ten shows reviewed by Jonathan:

The Space

Reviewed – 12th December 2019

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

The Prince of Homburg

The Space until 14th December

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: