Sherlockian Sojourns #86: 'The Brave Berkshires'

It was a Bank Holiday, and time for another Sojourn. Making my way to Clapham Junction Station, from here it was an hour’s journey to my first port of call, Basingstoke in Hampshire. From the station it was a twenty-five minute walk to Milestones Museum, a heritage centre that recreates Victorian and 1930s streets and shops. I had visited almost a year before when they had had hosted a Half Term family mystery trail around the Victorian streets - 'Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Emperor's Gold'. A year later, and again for Half Term, they were hosting a similar trail - 'Sherlock Holmes and the Missing Thornycroft Blueprint'. Even better, each entrance ticket lasts for a year, so I was able to re-use the previous year’s one. 

 

The previous year I had to all but beg for a trail booklet (being told that they were meant for children), but this year everyone young and old was being directed to meet a female ‘Mycroft’ downstairs to take part in the trail. Having been given my booklet and a pencil to complete, I walked to the first location, from which a blueprint had been stolen. There were questions at each location to identify more about how the crime was undertaken, which suspects could be discounted by items left at each location, eg. a red thread (the suspects remained the same as the previous year, but the perpetrator of this new crime was different), and a clue as to which location to go to next. There were also puzzles at each location (an addition this year) which allowed the name of the ship on which the perpetrator was fleeing justice to be identified, and additional information boards relating clues to canonical stories. It took me around forty minutes to complete my booklet, with the final puzzle which involved a lamp flashing in Morse Code being more complex than it needed to be, due to it being unclear when the letter started and ended  (luckily having five of the six letters indicated the most likely remaining letter, which proved to be correct). 

      

 

Having identified the perpetrator and ship, I had to go to a ‘Telegraph Office’ where I sent the ship’s call-sign by Morse-tapper, receiving a telegram from Holmes and a sticker once my correct answers had been confirmed.

 

Making my way back to Basingstoke Station, I had just enough time to grab some lunch from a nearby supermarket before catching a train whose air-conditioning had broken down for a forty-minute trip to Salisbury. From here it was a fifteen minute walk to Choristers Square, just next to the Cathedral, and The Rifles Berkshire and Wiltshire Museum, a public museum for the exhibition to the public, of documents, artefacts and other items connected with The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) and its successor regiment, The Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry. 

   

The museum includes a section on the Battle of Maiwand, one of the principal battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War. The battle ended in defeat for the British Army and victory for the Afghan followers of Ayub Khan. It was in this battle that Doctor John Watson received his war wound (whether that be in his arm or leg), and was thrown across a packhorse by Murray, his orderly, who succeeded in bringing him safely to the British lines, as outlined in ‘A Study in Scarlet’ [STUD].

“I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand” – Dr John H. Watson [STUD]

However, Watson could not have joined the Fifth Fusiliers at Kandahar, as outlined by him in the opening of STUD, because the regiment was never stationed there. They were part of the Peshawar Valley Field Force employed in the Khyber Pass, the Bazar Valley, Landi Kotal and Jalalabad – all in the northern territories. It is more feasible for him to have joined up with the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment whilst at Bombay, although this would have meant that he did not make it into Afghanistan until over a year later, as they marched into the southern city of Kandahar early in 1880. There was also no ‘Murray’ attached to the 66th, whereas the Fifth Fusiliers did have a Private J. Murray. Hence my attending this museum to mirror my earlier sojourn to the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland  (see here for full write-up).

The entrance hall included a large copy of “Last Stand of the ‘Eleven’ at the Battle of Maiwand” on two banners, along with a quote from William McGonagall’s poem, ‘The Last Berkshire Eleven’.

 Giving a donation for entry, I made my way into the museum, and the ‘Battle of Maiwand’ display case which included uniforms, a pocket watch, medals, the regimental mascot Bobbie (also wounded at Maiwand) and even Jezail Afghan matchlock muskets (a bullet from one of these led to Watson being invalided out).

  

There was also mention of the medical officer for the 66th Regiment, Surgeon-Major Alexander Francis Preston, who was present at Maiwand, who shortly after the action commenced, suffered his own war wound, a bullet passed through his back, fortunately missing the spine. He was then lying on a duli (a covered stretcher) when the native duli-bearers took it up and commenced running off with him as fast as they could go, shouting as they ran along that the Ghazis were on them. The similarities between Preston and Watson are plain to see – both were surgeons with the Berkshires; both were severely wounded, albeit in different parts of the body; and both had to be rescued from the murderous enemy on the battlefield by orderlies, either native or British.

I then went round the rest of the museum, which had a focus on the two World Wars, and ended with displays relating to more recent military action featuring the Berkshires, and spent a wonderful ten minutes in the sunny garden behind. There was also a dress-up section including a Deerstalker, but unfortunately they were all in children's sizes. Purchasing a ‘Royal Berkshires’ lapel pin, I made my way back onto Choristers Close. 

  

Having wasted some time browsing the shops in Salisbury, I made my way back to the Station, where there proved to be problems with the trains. I managed to make it back to Basingstoke after a short wait, but then spent over an hour on the platform there waiting for a repeatedly delayed train back to Clapham Junction, which when it arrived took its time between Raynes Park and Clapham Junction. Eventually I alighted, catching a train home within around fifteen minutes.

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin: A Drag Crime Caper' (Brighton Open Air Theatre)

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Sherlock Holmes vs. Arsène Lupin: A Drag Crime Caper’

Written & Directed by Samuel Masters.

(Brighton Open Air Theatre, 16/05/2026) 

 

A few days after ‘Sherlock Holmes’ at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, I found myself again in an Open Air Theatre, this time in Brighton, to watch a Sherlockian play presented by the Department of Ulterior Motives (DUM) as part of Brighton Fringe. DUM is a theatre company based in Brighton, specialising in ‘bold yet accessible reinterpretations of literature and folklore’, and the previous year had offered a comedic version of GK Chesterton’s metaphysical thriller ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’. This year’s offering was a comic adaptation of the ‘Arsène Lupin vs Sherlock Holmes/Herlock Sholmes’ novels of Maurice LeBlanc (recently updated for Netflix), but as the title indicates performed in drag, ie. with all the male characters played by females and (almost) all the female characters played by males.

I therefore caught a train from East Croydon to Preston Park, where it was a twenty-minute walk to Dyke Road Park and the theatre, Watching a matinee, I had learnt nothing from a few days before, and the early sunshine having evaporated by the time of the performance, I was grateful when during the interval, theatre staff came round handing out blankets.

The play itself was absolutely hilarious with Chully Mullock’s ridiculously camp Lupin being a highlight, along with Esther Dracott’s Watson. Maria Evans’ Holmes was appropriately pompous, Alex Scarrott’s Mrs. Hudson very pantomime dame, Michael Grant’s Irene Adler appropriately arch, and Phaedra Danelli’s Josephine very funny, with excellent support from Emma Howarth, Alex Louise and Tiggie Ellison. There were several lip-synchs, a couple of ‘Drag Race’ references, masses of physical comedy, and it even ended with a 1990s power ballad. After the two outdoor performances that day, it was having a short run at the Ironworks Studios. Definitely recommended if restaged.

 

Dramatic Score: 10/10    (I’m not taking a point off for an Irene Adler with a beard)

 

Rating:  (5/5)     

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Sherlock Holmes' (Regents Park Open Air Theatre)

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Sherlock Holmes’

Written by Joel Horwood, Directed by Sean Holmes.

(Regents Park Open Air Theatre) 

 

‘One day in early spring Holmes had so far relaxed as to go for a walk with me in [Regents] Park, where the first faint shoots of green were breaking out upon the elms, and the sticky spear-heads of the chestnuts were just beginning to burst into their five-fold leaves’.  [YELL]

 

Being performed less than a ten minute walk away from Baker Street and the Sherlock Holmes Museum, at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, this play was described in the pre-publicity as a ‘new adventure’ by Joel Horwood who wrote the critically acclaimed stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 'The Ocean at the End of the Lane’, this was only partially true. Act One was the second adaptation of ‘The Sign of Four’ that I had seen in the space of a month (albeit with some elements of one of my favourite short stories, ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans’, and more than a little anti-British Empire/ colonial social commentary). Act Two took the story off in a new direction (concluding ‘TBPP’) leading up to both a Reichenbach moment and a grand revelation that was written with the smugness of a writer who has never seen ‘The Crucifer of Blood’ another SIGN stage adaptation and thinks that they have come up with a unique ending. (That said, this production does take it one stage further, with another revelatory twist that half the audience seemed to be muttering along with the actors). A running joke about animals having been released from the Regents Park zoo (leading to a Lion riding a bike in the background at one point) was also stretched to capacity.

However, the main performances were very good with Joshua James’ Holmes (introduced in a RDJ-style boxing scene) walking the line between being maddening and impressively intelligent, and Jyuddah Jaymes’ black Watson and Nadi Kemp-Sayfi’s mixed-race Mary adding to the anti-Empire sentiment. Marcia Lecky’s Mrs. Hudson was under-used, and Mervin Noronha’s Tonga (no longer either a Pygmy or a savage) was an excellent dancer and second-half antagonist. The ensemble were also excellent, particularly in the opening Agra Fort scene and in a circus scene.

It was possibly a little long, particularly on what turned out to be a very cold May night, but I enjoyed the performance, and purchased both a poster and a postcard as well as a programme.

‘Sherlock Holmes’ runs at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre until 6^th June 2026.

  

Dramatic Score: 7½/10

Rating:  (4/5)     

Sherlockian Sojourns #85: As Seen On Screen 23 – ‘Candlin’ (Magdalen) College [‘Young Sherlock’ (2026)]

Having previously visited the Bristol locations standing in for Oxford in ‘Young Sherlock’ [2026] , it was time to journey to Oxford itself. Having spent the morning at an Anime event just outside the City Centre, meeting voices from three Sherlockian-themed Anime series – Chuck Huber (who plays Holmes in the epilogue of the Watson-led “The Empire of Corpses” [2015], and had also played the part on stage he informed me), Dallas Reid (who plays the Young Watson in “Kabukichou Sherlock” [2020]), and Jason Douglas (who plays Jefferson Hope in three episodes of “Moriarty The Patriot” [2020]) – I walked the twenty minutes back into Central Oxford, and Magdalen College.

Magdalen College (pronounced Maudlin) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, which was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England and named after St Mary Magdalene. The college succeeded a university hall called Magdalen Hall, founded by Waynflete in 1448, and from which the college drew most of its earliest scholars. The college appears as ‘Candlin College’ in ‘Young Sherlock’, being where Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) works and Moriarty (Donal Finn) studies.

Paying for entry, I found myself in St. John’s Quad, which serves as the entrance to the College, both in reality and in the series.

My next port of call was the College Chapel, a Grade I Listed Building, which was built between 1474 and 1480, although it owes its present appearance largely to neo-Gothic works carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries. The roof, giving the impression of a stone vaulted ceiling, is in fact a facsimile made from plaster added in 1790 by neo-Gothic architect James Wyatt. As a High Anglican chapel, its tradition is influenced by the Counter-Reformation in the Church of England. It was here Gulun Shou'an (Zine Tseng) meets Esad Kasgarli (Numan Acar) in Episode 2.

    

Exiting the Chapel, I made my way through to the Cloisters which appear briefly in the early episodes, but were best known to me for a scene in the first ‘Inspector Morse’ episode ‘The Dead of Jericho‘ where Morse (John Thaw) passes Colin Dexter (making the first of his many cameos). Part of the way round was a set of stairs leading to the College Dining Hall (which features heavily in Episode 1 of ‘Young Sherlock’), but these were closed off to visitors today.

Exiting the cloisters onto the New Building Lawns, in front of me was the impressive New Building which began construction in 1733, as a part of Edward Holdsworth's designs from 1731. It is built in a Palladian style, and features a colonnade. It was conceived as one side of a new ‘Great Quadrangle’, and in anticipation of this the building's ends had been left unfinished. However, Holdsworth's full vision was never completed, and the ends of the building were finally completed in 1824 with two returns designed by Thomas Harrison. This building appeared as the ‘Hodge Science Hall’, named for Bucephalus Hodge (Colin Firth) and being where gives his lecture in Episode 1, which is curtailed when Holmes and Moriarty indicate that there is a bomb in the cellars.

    

Back in St John’s Quad, I managed to take a few photos through foliage of St. Swithun’s Quad which appears in Episode 1, as the exterior of the party crashed by Holmes and Moriarty, as this area of the college was only accessible to Fellows and Students at the college.

Exiting the College, I took a photo of the High Street Gate through which Gulun Shou’an is seen entering the College.

From here it was a fifteen minute walk to Merton Street, where Sherlock arrives in Oxford with Mycroft (Max Irons) in Episode 1, and the Gate to Corpus Christi College where Moriarty and Sherlock are standing in Episode 2.

  

 

Unfortunately, it was too late in the day to gain access to the other main Oxford locations – all parts of the Bodleian Library. Two of these, the Divinity School and the Duke Humfreys Library (the latter being from where the Princess’ scrolls are stolen in the first episode) are visitable via a guided half-hour tour, but this had sold out hours before. I therefore purchased a couple of postcards – one of Magdalen College New Building and one of the Duke Humfreys Library – before browsing the bookshops of Oxford, then catching my train home.