Chorley Old Road Methodist Church, Bolton. Runs until

Saturday. THIS spoof of the Sherlock Holmes genre was perceptively written by Hugh Leonard. It's a ripping yarn, well presented and well cast in Peter Haslam's production, which opened its run last night. The plot is more complicated than any Conan Doyle devised. That one could follow its meanderings to the end was attributable to impressive feats of memory by the principals.

Excellent comic timing added to the enjoyment, the audience did not laugh as often as the comedy merited and failed to make its appreciation apparent until the performance ended.

The programme descriptions of a couple of the characters gives some idea of the flavour of the play: Herring - 'an everyday innocuous sinister family retainer' and the other: 'a landlord of a notorious den of vice and nameless aberrations (in Limehouse).

Like so many of the minor roles, these two parts were well played by Peter Haslam and Mick Tonge res- pectively.

Alan Macpherson was a splendidly tongue-in-cheek Sherlock Holmes, while Dave Eyre was an outstanding Dr Watson in the Nigel Bruce tradition.

Michael Hodgson was Moriarty, though because of his and Holmes's celebrated mastery of disguise, there was at times an identity crisis. To explain further would be to spoil the unravelling of the plot.

Lorraine Kenny was good in the female lead as Gwen Mellors, a rather mysterious young woman from America, while Joyce Smith was just right for the comic cameo role of Lily, a Eurasian. And John Nolan made the most of his part as the bumbling Inspector Lestrade, who managed to handcuff himself to a chair.

Scenery, scene changes and costumes added greatly to this exceptionally good production. Doreen Crowther

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