Sound & Fury's Sherlock Holmes & the Saline Solution - Fringe 2009
Live Review

For sheer exuberant silliness, you won't find much to top this hugely likable American trio's farcical murder mystery, although Christ knows what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have to say about it all.

Richard Maritzer, Shelby Bond and Vinnie Cardinale present an enjoyably irreverent portrait of British fiction's best loved super-sleuth as he investigates the sudden death of Sir Fistulous Withers, in mysterious circumstances.

It's informal from the off. The boys banter with the audience as we filter in and we witness a staged to-do between them which results in the part of Holmes being played by the cheerfully idiotic Bond, instead of the better prepared Maritzer. It's a simple but ingenious device that provides a solid foundation of easy laughs on which to build.

You know the sort of thing; at the scene of the crime, Holmes is completely at a loss as to what a knife might be doing on the floor. ‘Perhaps it matches the slicey holes on the body?’ Watson offers wearily.

The humour builds steadily as the plot thickens (or rather, gets more convoluted) and the three gallop through drawing rooms, music halls and warehouses, Cardinale turning his hand with admirable panache to playing the associated butlers, Victorian ladies and baddies.

The buffoonery is unremitting – an out-of-character Holmes tries to tell the audience whodunnit to save time; Cardinale delivers a parcel of curtains to an unfortunate fellow; a blow-up doll stands in for the part of the victim. But it's underpinned by a strong theatrical skill and a pacey, clever script packed with smart-arse wordplay.

It's impossible to accurately convey in words what an infectiously riotous piece of nonsense this is, just go see it.