“Rooted in the best that has gone before Miles-Thomas delivers something I never looked for, never knew I wanted, but suspect I will no longer be able to do without – an intimate understanding of the famously finicky curmudgeon direct from the horse’s mouth.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

I’ve just had a really good lunch. Breast of Guinea Fowl and a glass or two of something uncomplicatedly red. Peace and quiet in the tranquillity of Edinburgh’s clubland. A very short stroll to the Assembly Rooms and I’m ready to be told a chuffing good story, chuffing well, by a chuffing good actor. SPOILER ALERT: I get exactly that. An uncomplicated hour of familiar canonic classics.

Nigel Miles-Thomas’ classical portrait of Holmes is a lively, astutely judged and gratifyingly authentic homage that should easily pass muster with the purists. Rooted in the best that has gone before Miles-Thomas delivers something I never looked for, never knew I wanted, but suspect I will no longer be able to do without – an intimate understanding of the famously finicky curmudgeon direct from the horse’s mouth. Holmes without Watson to translate him into human is a tall order.

Edinburgh’s own Conan Doyle has been adapted more times than the Napoleon of Austerlitz has had hot biographies. Adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes universe are ten a penny but EdFringe punters have come to expect solid gold by those taking the road more travelled. There’s gold in this thar script by Holmesian hyper scholar, David Stuart Davies. Davies’ Holmes is humble, he recognises how much he needed Watson and is man enough to admit that he might have said so more clearly and more often. Holmes on the level is a much more amiable after-lunch companion than would have been the emotionally stunted, emotionally unavailable Sheldon Cooper Sherlock the arrogant SOB high on his own genius.

Cards on the table, the show’s director Gareth Armstrong produced what I consider to be the finest thing I have ever, and am ever likely to see at EdFringe – ‘The Rape of Lucrece’ performed by Gerard Logan in 2012. This was not so brilliant, nothing could be. I find myself wondering if there is rather too much material that’s been left in. A Fringe hour is like a suitcase, there is an artistry to packing it right and there’s something here that’s missing by its very presence. The high Victoriana set and properties did not sit comfortably with such determined minimalism. I’d have liked to have seen more movement, more business, more theatre framing Miles-Thomas’ exquisite portraiture. 

Like all brilliant careers, the Holmes universe lends itself to the retrospective scope. This is an adaptation which delivers the goods, although you’ll have to unpack them yourself. Let’s be clear, this is a potboiler but it’s as welcome as a Le Creuset coming out of the Aga and into good, companionable company. Get your Inverness capes on and go see this!

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