What, another rock musical from the Watermill? Following October’s rock Macbeth, Sherlock Holmes and the Poison Wood comes with a fearsome trigger warning including hate crime, suicide, anxiety, mental breakdown, murder, and racist, ableist, transphobic and fatphobic language. If that hasn’t put you off, congratulations – you’re in for a treat.

The music and lyrics by Ben Glasstone is a mixture of rock and ballads, with clever lyrics and a fast patter-like pace (think rap and/or Gilbert and Sullivan).

The production is by Metta Theatre who are proud of their diversity with a gender-fluid and neurodiverse team and these themes are reflected in the play.

Sherlock Holmes is brought into the 21st century, with a guitar replacing his violin, and Watson very keen on promoting him via social media. Dylan Wood is authoritative as Holmes and well matched by Me’sha Bryan’s feisty Dr Watson. Gillian Kirkpatrick is a smoothly evil Moriarty and EM Williams is the troubled protester Yorri. Richard P. Peralta is splendid as the food-loving Lestrade.

The singing is excellent throughout and the cast of eight all contribute to the music on guitar, violin, keyboard and drums.

The plot revolves around Moriarty’s attempts to kill Holmes and create a worldwide potato cultivar monopoly.

William Reynolds’ set is a simple white room which is brilliantly transformed by Matt Powell’s projection into an ever-moving display of pictures and text relating to what’s happening. This is very well done and doesn’t distract from the action. In addition, there are surtitles with the text and lyrics. Although all the cast speak and sing very clearly, it’s helpful (especially for those of us who are hard of hearing) to glance up occasionally to check. I hope the Watermill will make use of surtitles in other productions.

Written and directed by P Burton-Morgan, with good pace and excellent acting and singing, this is a production that, with its modern staging, music and social media references will appeal to adults of all ages and maybe shift the average audience age down a notch.

With its slightly silly plot, lots of humour and great music and acting, I can thoroughly recommend it.

PAUL SHAVE

Sherlock Holmes and the Poison Wood, a co-production between the Watermill and Metta Theatre, is written and directed by P Burton-Morgan, with music by Ben Glasston, who is also co-lyricist. The action, set in the present day, takes the form of a rock musical, with eight accomplished actor-musicians. Holmes (Dylan Wood) is both celebrated detective and electric-guitar playing youth, obsessed by his mother and her negative effect on his eating patterns. Nutritionist Dr Amanda Watson (Me’sha Bryan) runs Sherlock’s social media accounts and all the practical aspects of his life (laundry, food, bins), while also bringing up her family of three.

An approach by Yorri, a mother-dominated “hippy” protesting at big-pharma experimentation in a wood (EM Williams), leads Holmes to battle once more with his arch enemy: nature-attacking, mother-resenting Jan Moriarty (Gillian Kirkpatrick). The forces of social media are unleashed. A maligned Holmes becomes a target for trolls; Watson’s children receive death threats. Tables are turned and the same trolls praise Holmes as “the one”.

Interesting ideas, here, struggle for attention. Focus on characters’ personal issues disrupts the dynamics of the saving-the-world adventure story, the narrative demands of which hustle along the individuals’ journeys towards self-understanding, making it difficult for us to engage with them emotionally. Glasston’s rocking music has a similarly fractured quality, in spite of at least one hummable chorus (Elementary) and affecting ballads from Yorri (Flower) and Watson (Care). Case closed? More a work in progress, worth developing, but on press night a bumpy ride.

CLARE BRENNAN

Watermill world premiere rocks #Sherlock for the social media age

The adventures of crime-busting Sherlock Holmes have been widely adapted for film and television and now as a new bold modern rock musical, written and directed by P Burton-Morgan, with music by Ben Glasstone. It has its world premiere at the Watermill Theatre in collaboration with Metta Theatre.

Adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, Sherlock Holmes and the Poison Wood is set in modern day London with all the dependence on social media platforms and concerns of climate and ecological issues at its centre.

Dylan Wood is impressive as the guitar playing, rapping young Sherlock, who together with his landlady and fervent nutritionist Dr Amanda Watson - an engaging performance from Me’sha Bryan - who has built up huge numbers of social media followers all prefaced with hash tags are a crime fighting duo.

Activist Yorri Tremaly (Em Williams) is unhappy about the unexplained death of her friend at the infamous Oakenwood crisp factory and visit Sherlock to persuade him to take on the investigation as themed in the song Elementary.

They accept the case and Sherlock decides to go undercover and infiltrate the camp. He suspects that his arch-nemesis Jan Moriarty, powerfully played by Gillian Kirkpatrick, is behind a dastardly plan to take control of the world. So “the game is certainly afoot”.

However, when the eco warriors come down with food poisoning, Sherlock becomes the main suspect and is arrested by donut-loving police inspector Lestrade in a delightful comic performance by Richard P Peralta, featuring a song about ‘Biscuits’. It’s hilarious.

All the actors are accomplished musicians, with Jimmy Chambers as the band leader, who also plays the role of Zephyr. Loren O’Dair plays the violin beautifully as well as the character Sasha.

There is a strong unexpected mother-daughter link I won’t spoil the reveal and the sustainable credentials are admirable, as all the set, props and costume have been made from secondhand materials and will be passed on after the production.

Special mention for Matt Powel’s inventive projections and captions that created the spirit of the production so well in this daring, gutsy musical.

ROBIN STRAPP