Skip to main content

Max and Ivan are Holmes and Watson

...and a dolphin, a nude Scotsman and a whole host of prostitutes. There are hundreds of Holmes adaptations out there, and I am not afraid to say that this is the best. We are taken from Baker Street to Chicago in a flawlessly choreographed hour of fast-paced brilliance of Blockbuster quality on less than a B-movie budget. With only two bodies Max and Ivan create a world full of characters so clear-cut that they can all take to the stage at once, argue, fight, and still keep us captivated. Sound effects, flashbacks, theme tunes- nothing is beyond the range of this breathless production, which brings out the ridiculous in Holmes and sublimely exploits our understanding of the magic of theatre.
*****
Ditto Productions, Pleasance Courtyard, 3 – 29 Aug (not 16), 3:30 pm (1 hour), £8.50 - £11.00

[originally written for ThreeWeeks magazine]

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible...      It was hard.      The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter.      The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

You Say It Best...

(originally published by The Student )      Watch any western, any black-and-white adventure film, any rags-to-riches adaptation, and you'll realise we've seen this all before. The guy gets the girl, the evil tyrant falls and the True King rises, be it Middle Earth or the Mid-West. We've seen these scenes repeated across time and space, and we know how it goes. Without the speech, the scene still goes the same way. New film The Artist proves this, without saying a word. Aside from the picture-perfect cast and a dog which will reach cult celebrity status any day now, the film addresses the transition between '20s movies and '30s talkies, and a sparse use of sound which offers a challenge to the film-makers.      In one scene, uncharacteristically static, a pair of old friends meet and greet, swap stories, laugh- the details, irrelevant, are replaced by an emotive score and some close camera-work, all of which makes us feel no less connected to the...

Edinburgh Exchanges

     I've also just jumped aboard the Edinburgh Exchanges blog, which contains snippets from students around the world on International or Erasmus exchanges. I do so hoping with all my heart that this will not entail any deadlines. http://edinburghexchanges.wordpress.com/author/jajderian/