Greg Ellis’s one man show is deceptively titled. We do get a one man show, but it does not, directly, feature the great Sherlock. Rather his sidekick, John Watson, for once, gets to be the main man.

The venue is absolutely apt. The Victorian Conservatory hosts, under glass, exactly the kind of tropical plants you can imagine in a country estate in the Home Counties. It’s not the most dramatic and inventive of the gardens in the Hamilton Gardens complex, but its lush plants provide a beautiful and restful place to sit and be entertained.

The piece begins with an oddly dressed man chatting to strangers in the audience. He draws wary replies from those around him. Whether because they think he is slightly deranged or because they sense he is the ‘talent’, and anything you say might be used against you in performance, it’s hard to tell.

At 6pm on a Friday night, and with the space only half full, the audience spends the rest of the time not quite warming up. Ellis does his best, but despite his inventiveness, the evening never quite takes off.

The conceit is that Holmes, having been billed, has not turned up, as yet another dose of opium has taken hold. Watson manfully steps into the breach. He of course wrote down all the Holmes adventures, so is perfectly well placed to recount an unpublished Holmes case. Ellis tells this tale, playing Watson, Holmes and all the other characters in turn.

Key elements in the story (as in theatre sports) are suggested by the audience. Here the tepid crowd is least helpful, suggesting not very imaginative or whacky elements for Ellis to work with. However, Ellis battles gamely, kindling considerable life from what is literally a ‘shaggy dog’ tale – The Tale of the Big Dog – weaving the suggested elements into a pre-determined frame.

The improvised result is a combination of story-telling, acting and stand up comedy. A tale from the Victorian era allows considerable space for commentary on the current state of cricket, and the unlovely taste of local beer. Perhaps Ellis needs a bit more research on local obsessions, as the beer jokes come too readily, and this does not look much like a beer drinking crowd.

This was the first of three shows in Hamilton so I would imagine the ‘localness’ would sharpen in the next two.

Holmes Alone is an idea that travels well, and Ellis’s wit, energy and love for Sherlock’s world carry him through. Next time Holmes doesn’t appear in your neighbourhood, it would be worth seeking him out, to see Watson step in and save the day, again.

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We are so lucky that Greg Ellis has reprised his one man show for the Improv Festival. A solo show bobbing alone in a sea of collaborative performances, Ellis really is Holmes Alone. Or Watson, as it transpires, since Holmes himself does a no-show and poor Watson – Ellis in a deliciously absurd Norfolk suit, is left to entertain the capacity crowd.

He is a nice man who doesn’t feel he can send us out into the inclement weather, and does his best to recreate the story by himself, in spite of the fact that “he has no knowledge of stagecraft, being a medical man.”

I can see the obvious pros and cons of solo improv. On the one hand, one has more control and there is no need to track the actions of your team and try to catch the proverbial ball; on the other hand it means that the audience are far more involved. Instead of the usual two or three audience contributions to the initial idea, the audience are prompted for inputs throughout the tale, from the periodical Holmes is reading in the carriage to the sounds the villain is overheard to make while making lurve.

Throughout the show, Ellis is captivating – playing every character himself, he has us laughing at him, with him and in spite of him. The plot is satisfyingly complex and resolves itself quite rationally – the advantage of the one man show with a tight premise. As far as I could recall, not one loose end was left in the Case of the Shrinking Swordfish, which involved Buddhist monks based in Cheswick, a pregnant woman, a brothel, a ginger gardener who persisted in snapping his fingers and, well really, a lot of twaddle albeit entertaining twaddle! 

Ellis captures the cadence, details and pace of Victorian England credibly, and really knows his Holmes and Watson. They are definitely not the ones recently portrayed by Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, but drawn from the older traditions. Even Mrs Hudson gets a mention.

We can but hope that Greg Ellis brings Watson’s story-telling to the stage again in the future, as this one is well worth a revisit. 
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A one man hour long improv show is an ambitious project, and I must admit that beforehand I had concerns regarding how on earth it was going to work. My fears were needless. Greg Ellis is as excellent an improviser as Sherlock Holmes is a detective.

With prompted suggestions from the audience providing clues, tricks, and turns he (and we) set out to solve a hitherto undisclosed Holmes and Watson mystery – last night it was The Case of The Big Enormous Yellow Shaky Banana.

Ellis gets a lot of mileage out of the limitations of the one-man show – the way he deals with entrances, exits and swift exchange of dialogue is very funny and satisfying. I particularly enjoyed the initial set up in which Dr Watson roams the theatre hunting for an AWOL Holmes.

Where usually improvisers spark off each other, Ellis has only the audience to turn to. He cleverly incorporates almost all of our suggestions, although a couple fall by the wayside and some seem to be used perfunctorily in the next couple of lines of dialogue. This is fair enough though; it seems an effective strategy for weeding out audience suggestions with little scope for story.

There is a healthy respect for the source material, Ellis has a solid grasp of the vernacular and provides plenty of little details for those familiar with the goings on at 221B Baker St. 

And for those who do not know much about Mr Holmes the story is plenty satisfying.
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