Edinburgh Fringe reviews: Sherlock Holmes round-up | The Good Iranian | Chris Read + more

Among a bumper round-up of theatre reviews, one of our critics is trying to crack the case of why there are so many plays about Sherlock on this year's Fringe, while another has his magnifying glass out in search of the point to a show with no name

Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes | Ghostwriters

Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Believed in Fairies

C aquila (Venue 21) until 25 August

★★★☆☆

Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles

theSpace @ Symposium Hall (Venue 43) until 24 August

★★☆☆☆

Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes

Just the Tonic at the Caves (Venue 88) until 25 August

★★★☆☆

Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that the statue of Sherlock Holmes has returned to Edinburgh in honour of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (he’s now by the tram stop on Picardy Place), or possibly it’s just a coincidence, but there seems to be a lot of Sherlock Holmes-related content on this year’s Fringe. Here are three examples, beginning with possibly the most radical reinterpretation of both Holmes’ story and the work of Conan Doyle.

Writer by FR Maher and produced by Welsh company Coed Celyn Productions, Sherlock Holmes and the Man Who Believed in Fairies fuses Holmes’ fictional life with another famous link in Conan Doyle’s life, his promotion of the Cottingley Fairies, apparently supernatural beings photographed by two young Yorkshire girls in the 1910s. Conan Doyle, a credulous sort, wrote of his belief in these beings in the Strand magazine.

Here, Holmes attempts to get revenge on his creator and arch-enemy for nearly killing him off at the Reichenbach Falls by proving the Fairies are a hoax. Harry Meacher and Kenneth McConnell’s takes on Holmes and Watson are crisp and Victorian, and back projections change the scenes effectively, although an old-fashioned staging of an interesting concept is drained somewhat by a talky and overlong deductive conclusion.

Still, at least the play tries something new, unlike Birmingham-based Blue Orange Arts’ one-man production of The Hound of the Baskervilles on Hill Square. Actor Alan Groucott gives a capable and professional storytelling version of the classic tale, yet depth of characterisation and surrounding production values are minimal. An enjoyable one for Holmes enthusiasts, no doubt, but an extremely spartan version of what’s possible even with a no-budget Fringe show.

The comedy hour Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, shows what’s capable with just three actors (one of them, we discover at the end, is novelist Alice Winn), a chair, a few items of prop clothing and a silly title, in this case Sherlock Holmes and the Illegal Baby Powder. It’s a capable piece of high-wire improvised storytelling, which proves that panicking actors saying amusingly silly things off-the-cuff sounds even funnier with an air of grandiose Victorian formality.

David Pollock

The Good Iranian

Just The Tonic at the Caves (Venue 88)

★★★☆☆

Given the language of enmity and hatred now often used about Iran in the west, it’s perhaps not surprising that the positive aspects of the country’s astonishingly rich culture and history rarely feature, in 21st century western narratives.

Yet for Iranian Americans like Arsalan Akhavan - now appearing at the Caves in his one-hour solo show The Good Iranian - that limited and one-dimensional view of Iran is not a realistic option; and his show is designed to tell the story of his Iranian American life, since he was born in Atlanta in 1993, while also introducing us to the powerful moral narratives of the great Iranian epic poem the Shahnameh, the story of kings, which emerged around 1000 years ago as the defining epic of Persian language and culture, and helped to save both from oblivion.

Like Scotland’s own epic of good government, The Satire of the Three Estates, the Shahnameh is a humorous and human tale, full of recognisable characters and glimpses of ordinary life, as well as mighty poetry about the glories of good governance, and the horrors that follow when it goes wrong. And while Akhavan’s performance is perhaps not the most polished on the Fringe - after a career in the California tech industry, he still seems a little hesitant in his new role as a London-based theatre-maker - his immense charm, and devotion to the story he tells, holds the show together in convincing style, and does full justice to the sheer cultural richness of the land where his parents were born.

Joyce McMillan

Until 25 August

Chris Read: The Back Line

PBH’s Free Fringe @ Fingers Piano Bar (Venue 221)

★★☆☆☆

Singer/songwriter Chris Read is a Fringe regular as one half of jocular duo Harry and Chris but this year he is trying something different – a whimsical one-man semi-autobiographical musical about 24 hours in the life of a London-based session musician and ukulele tutor. The Back Line is a gentle meditation on the hustle required by freelance artists to keep head above water, largely delivered with script in hand on its third ever performance. Read’s songs also have a conversational quality which keeps the informality flowing and makes for a pleasant easy listening mid-afternoon escape from the Festival hurly burly.

Fiona Shepherd

Until 24 August

Hungry Like the Future

theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9)

★★☆☆☆

Greene Shoots Theatre Company go back to the future for this cheery neon-coloured dystopian drama set in 1984. The Commodore 64 is on its way to becoming the most popular home computer of all time, Pong and Pacman are the last word in techno fun, Buggles, The Pointer Sisters and, of course, Together In Electric Dreams are on the soundtrack and “ordinary boy” Kevin is learning coding and crushing on girls when he finds himself trapped inside a game and, like an 8-bit Wizard of Oz, has to find his way home. A couple of sparky leads keep the production on track; everyone else at least looks good in legwarmers.

Fiona Shepherd

Until 24 August

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Untitled

theSpace @ Symposium Hall (Venue 43)

★☆☆☆☆

This new play by Bulgarian writer Gabriela Krumova has a neat gimmick: it is genuinely untitled and audiences are invited to suggest one for the chance to win a £200 restaurant voucher. Even so, it’s not enough to recommend braving this loose collection of time-skipping scenes that follows a couple, Elena and Robin, through their life. The cast — most not native English speakers — do well to remember their lines as the show’s structure seems haphazard and resists engagement at every turn. At one point Robin declares “I feel like a bird in a cage!” then follows it up with some ornithological observations but the point proves elusive. Perhaps ‘Unfinished’ would be a more apt title?

Rory Ford

Until 24 August

Toy Stories, or How Not to Make a Living as an Artist

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)

★★☆☆☆

This autobiographical ramble through 20th Century and contemporary political history is like a fevered cheese dream you might have after binge watching nine straight hours of Adam Curtis documentaries. Chris Dobrowolski is an artist who due to limitations of scale works with repurposed toys to create inventive installations. He’s also a popular art lecturer who, you feel, has overreached himself with this only intermittently engaging audio-visual presentation that attempts to link everything everywhere all at once. This would really benefit from more focus and some judicious editing. Dobrowolski does make some interesting connections but this becomes intoxicated with its own cleverness and could stretch the patience of even the most relentlessly curious.

Rory Ford

Until 26 August

The Crow, (The Princess), and the Scullery Maid 2

The Space @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53)

★★☆☆☆

There are some interesting ideas at play in The Crow, (The Princess), and the Scullery Maid, including a TED talk on the company’s creative approach to the tropes of the fairytale genre. The eponymous characters are introduced one by one, together with the treat of a magic trick or two. Unfortunately, this is not enough to redeem the rudimentary set and performance style. When the crow arrives, it takes the form of a plush toy, and this image comes to inform the final impression of the production itself - which is an act of taxidermy, as opposed to one of transformation.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Until 24 August