SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE DEATH AND LIFE

Sherlock Holmes: The Death and Life from Big Finish is an audio adaptation of the second of David Stuart Davies’ one-man stageplays as performed by Roger Llewellyn and directed by Nicholas Briggs.  This second play covers some of the same ground as the previous one, Sherlock Holmes: The Last Act, except this time it’s effectively told from the viewpoint of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes’ creator.

This play gives a fictionalised account of Conan Doyle’s exasperation with his creation, of being known only as “the Sherlock Holmes man” and not for any of his other work.  It tells how he seeks to destroy Holmes once and for all, his creation of Professor Moriarty to do the deed, the eventual demise at the Reichenbach Falls, and Holmes’ subsequent resurrection for The Hound of the Baskervilles.  It ends somewhat morosely around Conan Doyle’s grave at his funeral, with Holmes remarking that the characters outlived their creator.

The first hour or so of this 75-minute play is quite a torturous affair as it tells of Conan Doyle’s frustration with his most famous creation overshadowing himself and his other works that he would prefer to be known for.

The writer, David Stuart Davies, creates a kind of multiple personality inside Conan Doyle’s mind, first with his separation of Holmes as a creation and into a “real” figure, and the second with the creation of Moriarty and allowing Moriarty to be aware of Conan Doyle.  The play ultimately winds up with a Moriarty that feels inspired by the Star Trek : The Next Generation adventure Ship in a Bottle in which a holodeck-created version of Professor Moriarty appears to gain sentience over that which created him (a matter of bizarre illogic that seems to occur to no one).

With Moriarty having a strange sense of sentience, he reveals all to Holmes and effectively “teams up” with him to thwart their creator such that they don’t perish at Reichenbach but that they give their creator the impression that they both did die there.

Fictionalising of the creator doesn’t really work, but the way Davies has written the play gives a strong sense that the entire thing is played out inside Conan Doyle’s mind, much in the way that a writer might give their characters latitude to stretch themselves prior to defining their part in a story.  In this sense, it works far better than the aforementioned ST:TNG version of character sentience.

The play continues with the return of Holmes, with Conan Doyle endeavouring to work out what is missing from his draft for what would become The Hound of the Baskervilles that would make it work.  He participates in a seance, at which point Holmes returns in a moment of triumph, and the rest is history.

Almost as soon as Holmes has returned, the play abruptly ends by shooting forward to Conan Doyle’s funeral in 1930.  Having endured much of Conan Doyle’s tortured soul, the abruptness of the ending is quite brutal.  I would have hoped that, with the rise in live action portrayals of Sherlock Holmes around the time of The Hound of the Baskervilles (William Gillette on stage in 1900, plus filmed performances beginning in 1908, with many popular examples in the 1920s), Conan Doyle would be seen to at last come to terms with his creation and there being a peace between them.  To jump from 1901 to 1930 at the drop of a hat whilst languishing for too long on the former years feels more than just a little abrupt.

There’s some emphasis in the behind-the-scenes interviews of some comedic and highly hilarious moments in the play but I heard none of that.  Nothing I heard was remotely funny.  In fact, quite the opposite.  As all of the narrative appeared to be taking place in the mind of Conan Doyle’s tortured soul, I found little of humour anywhere.

In production terms, the one-man nature of this play requires some latitude.  Holmes is again talking to a Dr Watson who makes no input (beyond suggesting the writer was bored with Holmes by falling asleep during one of Holmes’ deductions).  Conan Doyle’s thoughts mostly come from writing to his mother.  Moriarty has less time on his own, heard talking to either Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, or himself.

As a companion piece to The Last Act, Sherlock Holmes: The Death and Life is an intriguing look at what may have been going on in Conan Doyle’s mind as he struggled to accept the popularity of his more well-known heroic creation.  At times it’s a struggle to get through, particularly around the midpoint of the narrative, but it’s an interesting piece nonetheless.