Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B at Arcola Theatre Review
Photo by Alex Brenner
Written by Bronagh for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Content warnings: discussion and depiction of violence including murder and suicide involving blood, sexual references, simulated drug use, smoking, use of imitation firearms.
The Arcola Theatre welcomes Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B, a gender reversed imagining of Sherlock Holmes, promising ‘dark comedy’, ‘mystery’, and ‘mayhem’. Whilst this may sound very promising, this show still has a little way to go to meet its full potential.
We meet Ms Watson (Simona Brown), in a ‘transitional phase’ of her life. This takes her to post-pandemic Baker Street, where she is planning to rent a reasonable room from Mrs Hudson (Alice Lucy). The catch? She must share facilities with the eccentric Sherlock Holmes (Lucy Farrett), who has a penchant for playing music loudly and larking about with a fencing sabre. Max Dorey’s set is impressive upon walking into Studio One, capturing the essence of the flat under the hustle and bustle of Baker Street. However, parts of the production do include projections onto the blinds, the view of which is restricted by a pink Smeg fridge unless you are sitting face-on.
This is a production that I really wanted to love, but instead found myself clock watching. Act One was pacey enough; however, the second act could have been condensed, instead of dragging on to a 2 hour 40 minutes run time. The substance just wasn’t there to justify a show of this length. We were promised a feminist twist; unless this is simply reversing the genders of Holmes and Watson, I must have missed this twist entirely.
We were treated to a conveyor belt of ‘mysteries’, including a bizarre bathtub murder which hints at a Communist plot. In London in the 2020s? Perhaps not. Dressing up as nuns in order to steal a USB stick which holds lewd footage of American presidential hopeful Elliot Monk (Tendai Humphrey Sitima)? The only word I have to describe this is questionable. It doesn’t flow, instead feeling jarring.
We get a monologue from Watson in Act Two, which explains why she has been cagey with the details about her life before Baker Street. We hear about how she was the perfect student and perfect doctor with a big house, until the trauma of treating Covid-19 patients set in. If only this had come sooner, the show could have redeemed itself, the potential to add emotion and depth looking us right in the face.
The cast undoubtedly does the best with what they have been given and are the saving grace of the show. Although wholly one-dimensional, character Farrett does give an enjoyable enough performance of Holmes. Brown is a lot more laid back than Watson, I just wish we had of cracked the character a lot sooner than we did. Lucy did a great job in bouncing between three characters, from landlady Mrs Hudson to the vampy ‘lady of the night’ Irene Adler.
This is a production that isn’t sure what it wants to be and tries too hard to be funny. It probably would have been better off marketing itself as satire; as it stands, this is confusing and clumsy in places, instead of the razor-sharp witty production that it would like to be.
At The Arcola Theatre until 20th December 2025.
★ ★
