IT is fitting that Robert Powell will be appearing in a production with the title Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain at Manchester Opera House next week.

For the Salford-born actor has revealed that at 74, this show which he devised, could well be his own final major touring production.

“The problem is that you can’t tour without touring so I’m thinking this will probably be my last,” he said. “I’m not retiring but I really think I might knock touring on the head.”

Robert, who has had a glittering career on TV, in film and on the stage, has been on the road as the world’s greatest detective in this new production for most of the year as it visits the UK’s leading regional theatres.

“Someone said to me in an interview recently ‘you are touring so often you must really love it’.

“I just had to put them straight and asked ‘would you enjoy spending months every year, six days a week in hotels, getting home in the early hours of Sunday morning and leaving again on Monday?’ and they said ‘no, I’d hate it’. So there you have your answer.

“Let’s face it, as an actor you do it to earn a living. One of the advantages of being relatively successful is that you can choose really good plays to take on the road and with a good enough production you can make everybody happy. But you are still left with the issue of all that travelling.”

With Sherlock Holmes, Robert admits things have been made easier by being on the road with ‘a bunch of friends’. Mary Watson, wife of Holmes’ long-standing sidekick Dr Watson, is played by Liza Goddard.

“I think this will be our fifth show together over the years,” said Robert. “It’s always good to work with somebody you know very well.”

Watson is played by Timothy Kightley who previously worked with Robert in the Alan Bennett play Single Spies and David Brindley, who directed that production, has also been behind Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain.

“It’s nice to have the company of friends on tour, we all get on very well.” said Robert.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character, Sherlock Holmes has been the subject of scores of plays and movies but The Final Curtain offers a different take on the great detective.

“The idea came to me last August and we put a team together,” he said. “I came up with a plot and they came up with a script and here we are, taking it out on the road.”

Sherlock Holmes: The Final Curtain sees the detective in retirement tormented by personal demons.

“Holmes is still on the drugs and he’s riddled with paranoia,” said Robert. “He imagines that the world is out to get him and, who knows? He might well be right.”

This is not the first time that Robert has donned the tweed and deerstalker in a production.

“I was only thinking the other day that when we come to Manchester it will almost be 25 years to the day that I was at the Opera House playing Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “But that was in Sherlock Holmes the Musical which was a very different production.

“The Final Curtain is a very interesting play and I think it will take people by surprise.”

Holmes has long been a favourite of film makers and TV producers. His most recent incarnation in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch, complete with computer graphics, mobile phones and hi-tech gizmos, has brought a new generation of fans to the detective.

“It’s not like the Sherlock Holmes people have been exposed to recently,” said former Holby City star Robert. “It is a more traditional Holmes. But having said that it’s definitely not a straightforward Holmes, this is Holmes with problems.”

Playing a complex character must, I suggest be a gift for an actor.

“I hear actors always saying ‘I like to play flawed characters’ but of course you do!” laughed Robert. “Flawed characters are more interesting to play; they are multi-dimensional and more human plus you can mine your own personality to add to the role.”

It is hard to believe that it is over 40 years since Robert became a global star when he played the title role in Jesus of Nazareth.

The former Manchester Grammar School pupil has also been associated with the role of John Hannay in The Thirty Nine Steps and partnered comedian Jasper Carrott in the TV series The Detectives.

But now, it’s Sherlock Holmes who will be occupying his time when it comes to Manchester next week.

“We’re very much looking forward to it,” he said.

Sherlock Holmes; The Final Curtain, Manchester Opera House, Monday, July 23 to Saturday, July 28. Details from 0844 871 3018 or www.atgtickets.com