THEATRE REVIEW: Love All (Jermyn Street Theatre, London)

 

Introduction

‘Love All’ is a stage comedy, written by Dorothy L. Sayers (best known for the ‘Lord Peter Wimsey’ stories) presented in April 1940 at the Torch Theatre in Knightsbridge. Rather than being a crime drama, the play is instead a parody of the light romantic comedies that were a theatre staple in the 1920s and ‘30s. In it Sayers satirises the genre whilst discussing her beliefs about women and society, discussing the issue of career versus family. Unfortunately, the play was not commercially successful, and this production at the Jermyn Street Theatre as part of their ‘Temptations’ season represents the first major revival in seventy years.

 

Plot

Lydia thought abandoning the West End to elope to Venice with a romantic novelist would be exciting. But Godfrey writes all day, his divorce is taking forever, and the Grand Canal smells ghastly. Back in London, a new female playwright is taking theatreland by storm, and Lydia resolves to return to England bag herself the role of a lifetime. What could possibly go wrong ?

 

Review

Cards on the table, the presence of Alan Cox (Watson in ‘Young Sherlock Holmes’) was what initially drew me to this production, alongside my love of Sayers’ crime fiction. However, this is a play about its female protagonists, Emily Barber as Lydia and Leah Whitaker as Janet, the mysterious playwright. Both were outstanding. Act One, set in a room overlooking Venice’s Grand Canal, was witty in showing how after eighteen months a paradise can become a hell, but it is not until Acts Two and Three (after the interval) where the scene changes to a room overlooking London’s Grand Junction Canal (involving the stage crew spending the whole interval moving furniture around the open plan stage of the Jermyn Street Theatre) that the real laughs come.

Act Two was the closest to farce with a wonderful example of talking at cross-purposes between Alan Cox and Daniel Burke (playing a wonderfully over-the-top young actor) with latter repeatedly calling Godfrey Mr. Daybreak rather than Mr. Daybrook, before ending with a long expected re-entrance of a character from Act One right on cue. Act Three is where Sayers focuses even more on her female characters allowing some wonderful witticisms about the relationships between men and women, before a kangaroo court is held with Henry Norton theatrical manager (Jim Findley – Mercer in ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’) acting as judge. The cast was rounded out by Bethan Cullinane and Karen Ascoe as two secretaries, with very different approaches to their job.

I was also amused that the cast list on the prominent poster for Janet’s first hit ‘Mare’s Nest’ was entirely made up of characters from the ‘Wimsey’ canon  (Harriet Vane and Mervyn Bunter being the giveaways).  

Definitely recommended.

Rating: 

 

‘Love All' runs at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London, until 8th October 2022
(https://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/love-all/)

Sherlockian Sojourns #39: “I think that I may get started for London at once.” [LAST]

Being in central London to meet Wolf Kahler (The King of Bohemia in the Granada ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’), I decided to visit a few sites missed on a previous sojourn. Catching the tube to Marble Arch, it was a seven minute walk to Connaught Street, identified as ‘Little Ryder Street’ where Nathan Garrideb was a permanent resident who needed to be lured away by ‘Killer Evans’ in ‘The Three Garridebs’. I could not find any properties with two deep bay windows, so took photos of the road and possible properties.

 

  

“It was twilight of a lovely spring evening, and even Little Ryder Street, one of the smaller offshoots from the Edgware Road, within a stone-cast of old Tyburn Tree of evil memory, looked golden and wonderful in the slanting rays of the setting sun. The particular house to which we were directed was a large, old-fashioned, Early Georgian edifice, with a flat brick face broken only by two deep bay windows on the ground floor. It was on this ground floor that our client lived, and, indeed, the low windows proved to be the front of the huge room in which he spent his waking hours.”   [3GAR]

 

Retracing my steps to Marble Arch, I walked along to Bond Street Station, making my way down its left side until I reached Claridge’s Hotel. It was from here that J. Neil Gibson wrote to Holmes requesting his help to clear the name of Grace Dunbar in ‘The Problem of Thor Bridge’, and also where Holmes told Martha he could be contacted having captured Von Bork in ‘His Last Bow’.  

     

Another short walk brought me to Grosvenor Square again, previously visited as containing the residences of Lord St. Simon [NOBL] and Isadora Klein  [3GAB], but also the location for the Spanish Embassy visited by John Scott Eccles to enquire about the mysterious Garcia in ‘Wisteria Lodge’.

 

It was then another short walk to Conduit Street, where ‘the second most dangerous man in London’, Colonel Sebastian Moran, lived, according to Holmes’ index of biographies in ‘The Empty House’.

     

Walking on past Berkley Square, and the residence of General De Merville [ILLU], I reached Half Moon Street, where the fictional ‘Dr. Hill Barton’ (played by Watson) resided in the same story.

    

Reaching the end of Half Moon Street, I turned left onto Piccadilly, where I found Green Park station closed due to crowds leaving flowers in the Park following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. I therefore made my way along Piccadilly until finally I reached Piccadilly Circus, where I could catch a tube.

Sherlockian Sojourns #38: ‘Wasting Our Energies in Liverpool’

“I would not have you waste your energies in East Ham or Liverpool. I am sure that we can find some shorter cut to a result” – Sherlock Holmes  [VALL]

 

An unusual sojourn in that I was accompanied by a Sherlockian friend. Having spent the morning at a ‘Doctor Who’ exhibition at the World Museum in Liverpool, our plan was to spend the afternoon visiting filming sites and canonical locations in central Liverpool, which has featured extensively in the Granada dramatisations and in the recent Netflix drama ‘The Irregulars’.

First stop was two minutes up William Brown Street to the Liverpool Central Library, which appeared as ‘The Hippodrome Theatre’ in Episode 2 of ‘The Irregulars’.

A little further up was the Walker Art Gallery, which appeared as ‘The Lyceum Theatre’ in the Granada dramatisation of ‘The Sign of Four’, being where Holmes and Watson waited with Watson’s future wife, Mary Morstan, at the ‘third pillar from the left’.

 

Continuing up to the crossroads and turning right, we reached St. George’s Hall which features as the Palace Steps in ‘The Irregulars’ and as a Court in the Granada ‘Thor Bridge’.  (It also features as itself in ‘Doctor Who: Survivors of the Flux’, the fifth episode of the thirteenth series).

   

 

Retracing our steps, we passed the World Museum, crossing the main road, and making for the Waterfront. Three-quarters of the way there, we turned up a side street, made a few more turns, until we reached Ormond Street which was used as a Victorian street in ‘The Irregulars’.

 

Following this road through, and after a few more turns, we reached Liverpool Town Hall, whose impressive Staircase Hall appears as the interior of the Palace in ‘The Irregulars’. Unfortunately, due to it being a Sunday there was no admittance, so we had to take photos from outside.

 

     

Returning to the main street, we continued to the Waterfront, with two buildings initially being of interest. The first was the Cunard Building which the Police visit in ‘The Cardboard Box’ in search of Jim Browner, and the second was the Port of Liverpool Building, whose impressive atrium appears in Granada’s ‘The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax’. Unfortunately, they were both also closed, but I managed to get an ineffectual photo through the doors at the latter.

 

  

“It had been ascertained at the shipping offices that Browner had left aboard of the May Day, and I calculate that she is due in the Thames tomorrow night” – Sherlock Holmes  [CARD]

We then briefly visited the Museum of Liverpool (for the second time that day, having gone there in error earlier for the DW exhibition) as it appears repeatedly in Series 13 of ‘Doctor Who’, even getting selfies with the Fab Four statues as a Sontaran had in one episode.

Continuing along the Waterfront we reached the Albert Dock, once famous for being where the daytime TV programme ‘This Morning’ was transmitted (with a floating weather map). Holmes visited this dock in ‘The Five Orange Pips’, with Lestrade doing so in ‘The Cardboard Box’.

    

“The Lone Star had arrived here last week. I went down to the Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah” – Sherlock Holmes [FIVE]

“I went down to the Albert Dock yesterday at 6 p.m., and boarded the S.S. May Day, belonging to the Liverpool, Dublin, and London Steam Packet Company. On enquiry, I found that there was a steward on board of the name of James Browner” - Inspector G. Lestrade  [CARD]

 

Having visited a nearby shopping centre (which also featured in DW Series 13) and the Liverpool branch of Forbidden Planet, we found ourselves at a bombed out church which appeared in ‘Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time’ (which guest-starred Thaddea Graham, star of ‘The Irregulars’). It was at this point that my colleague decided to bow out, due to suffering from pain in his hip from all the walking, related to an underlying health issue. I therefore went on alone for my final stops of the day.

A ten minute walk (past a sign to Williamson’s Tunnels which played an important part in DW: Series 13) brought me to Falkner Street, which appeared as ‘Baker Street’ in ‘The Irregulars’. I was aware that ‘221b’ was opposite a particular side-road, which helped as the row of houses had three with identical blue doors. I even managed to grab a quick selfie in front of the correct door.

   

Walking to the end of Falkner Street, I turned right, and after around five minutes found myself at Canning Street, which appeared as another street in ‘The Irregulars’.

I could then not find the next local street that I wanted, but finally found myself on Hope Street, for my final ‘The Irregulars’ street of the day.

At the end of this road was Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, which appeared in ‘Doctor Who: Once, Upon Time’.

 

A possible jaunt to Sefton Park and the Palm House that features as the aviary in the cinematic ending of the first episode of ‘The Irregulars’ was cancelled due to time constraints. I therefore slowly made my way back to the car park behind the World Museum, rejoining my friend, to drive back to his home in Nottinghamshire.     

Sherlockian Sojourns #37: 'One Of Our Great University Towns' (Oxford)

Having spent the morning walking around sites from Agatha Christie and ‘Midsomer Murders’, my afternoon was to be spent in Oxford, a location most associated with another fictional detective, Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse (whose locations I will also highlight), but which may feature in the Sherlock Holmes canon also, as it not clear from Watson’s depiction of the university town of ‘Camford’, whether Professor Presbury worked in Cambridge or Oxford. Holmes may also have attended Oxford University himself, making friends with Victor Trevor and Reginald Musgrave.

It was, however, Oxford where Father Ronald Knox was a fellow. In 1928, Knox published ‘Essays in Satire’ which included ‘Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes’, the first of the genre of mock-serious critical writings on Sherlock Holmes and mock-historical studies in which the existence of Holmes, Watson, et al. is assumed, now referred to as ‘the game’. He had previously, along with his three brothers, sent a letter to Arthur Conan Doyle in 1904, highlighting inconsistencies in the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ stories. He is also known for his ‘Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction’ that describe a philosophy of writing in which the reader can participate, attempting to find a solution to the mystery before the fictional detective reveals it.

Alighting from my bus on the High Street, it was a short walk to my first stop, The Chequers Inn, a fifteenth-century building which became a tavern in c1500. This inn would seem to confirm that the visit to Professor Prestbury in ‘The Creeping Man’ was to Oxford, as Cambridge does not have an inn named ‘The Chequers’.

   

  

“Tomorrow, Mr. Bennett, will certainly see us in Camford. There is, if I remember right, an inn called the Chequers where the port used to be above mediocrity and the linen was above reproach. I think, Watson, that our lot for the next few days might lie in less pleasant places” – Holmes  [CREE]

 

It was then a short walk to my first Oxford College of the afternoon, St. John’s College which was identified by Roger Lancelyn Green as being ‘St Luke’s’ in ‘The Three Students’, where a tutor, Mr. Hilton Soames, had been reviewing the galley proofs of an exam he was going to give when he left his office for an hour. When he returned, he found that his servant had accidentally left his key in the lock, and someone had disturbed the exam papers on his desk leaving the three students who will take the exam live above him in the same building as the main suspects.

    

   

“You are aware, Mr. Holmes, that our college doors are double—a green baize one within and a heavy oak one without. As I approached my outer door, I was amazed to see a key in it. For an instant I imagined that I had left my own there, but on feeling in my pocket I found that it was all right”  - Hilton Soames  [3STUD]

 

“The sitting-room of our client opened by a long, low, latticed window on to the ancient lichen-tinted court of the old college. A Gothic arched door led to a worn stone staircase. On the ground floor was the tutor's room. Above were three students, one on each storey” – Watson  [3 STUD]

           

The recently departed Nicholas Utechin also chose this college as Holmes’ on the basis that an Edmund Gore Alexander Holmes went up there in 1869 on a scholarship, a George Musgrave and a John Escott (Holmes’ pseudonym in ‘Charles Augustus Milverton’) also attended the college at the relevant times. This would also explain the otherwise mysterious comment in ‘The Three Students’ that Holmes knew the door structure in the college. St John's is the wealthiest college in Oxford, with a financial endowment of £600 million as of 2020, largely due to nineteenth-century suburban development of land in the city of Oxford of which it is the ground landlord. St. John’s is also Morse’s college in the book, ‘The Riddle of the Third Mile’.

Retracing my steps, I passed the Randolph Hotel, which appears in ‘Inspector Morse’ TV episodes ‘The Wolvercote Tongue’, ‘The Infernal Serpent’, ‘Second Time Around’, ‘The Wench is Dead’, and ‘The Remorseful Day’.  Next, I popped into a bookshop, ‘Book Stop’, which had wallpaper on the stairs down to the basement featuring three ‘Sherlock Holmes’ book covers (along bizarrely with the cover to the novelisation of 'Doctor Who' story ‘Full Circle’).

 

  

Back on the street, another short walk brought me to Trinity College, where in 1910, Father Ronald Knox became a fellow. The college was founded in 1555 by Sir Thomas Pope, on land previously occupied by Durham College, home to Benedictine monks from Durham Cathedral. It was founded as a men's college and has been coeducational since 1979. Trinity has produced three British prime ministers (William Pitt the Elder, Lord North & Spencer Compton), placing it third after Christ Church and Balliol in terms of former students who have held the office. Knox’s room, No. 84 was located on the ground floor on the right side of the Garden Quad. Unfortunately, due to building work taking place there was no access to the College, and I had to make do with photos taken through protective fencing. Trinity College also appears in Morse episodes ‘The Last Enemy’, ‘The Wench is Dead’ and ‘Twilight of the Gods’.

 

Opposite the College was Turl Street, a possible location for Holmes and Watson’s hansom cab ride to meet Professor Prestbury in ‘The Creeping Man’. Turl Street also appeared in ‘Deadly Slumber’.

“A friendly native on the back of a smart hansom swept us past a row of ancient colleges and, finally turning into a tree-lined drive, pulled up at the door of a charming house, girt round with lawns and covered with purple wisteria”   - Watson  [CREE]

 

One of these ‘ancient colleges’ is Exeter College, the fourth-oldest college of the University, where in both print and television, Morse collapsed in the front quad with a heart attack in ‘The Remorseful Day’. The College was founded in 1314 by Devon-born Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter, as a school to educate clergymen. It is also the alma mater of my own father, and of Philip Pullman whose play ‘Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Sumatran Devil’ (later renamed 'Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror') was partially responsible for my interest in Holmes.  (Pullman renamed Exeter as ‘Jordan College’ in his ‘His Dark Materials’ books). Other Exeter College alumni include J. R. R. Tolkien, Richard Burton, Roger Bannister, and Alan Bennett.

A little way further on was Brasenose College, which began as Brasenose Hall in the thirteenth-century, before being founded as a college in 1509. The library and chapel were added in the mid-17th century and the new quadrangle in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The exterior of Brasenose acted as the exterior of ‘Brompton School’ in ‘Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear’ (1985).  It also appears several times in ‘Inspector Morse’, including as the fictional ‘Beaumont College’ in ‘The Last Enemy’.

  

  

A short distance away was Merton College. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to support it. An important feature of de Merton's foundation was that this "college" was to be self-governing and the endowments were directly vested in the Warden and Fellows. It was at Merton College that the first reading of Father Knox’s paper, then entitled ‘The Mind and Art of Sherlock Holmes’, is thought to have taken place, on Friday 10th March 1911, in the room of Reginald Diggle, a member of the college’s Bodley Club. It also appears in ‘The Service of All The Dead’ and ‘The Infernal Serpent’. The College was just closing to visitors, so again I had to take some photos through the doorway.

    

My final University College of the day was the impressive Christ Church College. This was founded in 1546, one of the most prestigious colleges with 13 British Prime Ministers (including Gladstone), philosophers (eg. John Locke), reformers (eg. John Wesley) and scientists (eg. Robert Hooke) amongst its alumni. It is also the only Oxbridge college to also be a cathedral.

In his seminal essay, Knox stated that he believed Holmes attended Christ Church. He seems to have named Christ Church due to its prestige, elitism and wealthy clientele which he stated explained Holmes’ isolationism when at university. Roger Lancelyn Green stated Holmes left Cambridge after two years and embarked on a new course of study at Christ Church Oxford. He quotes both a Holmes (R E H Holmes) and a Musgrave as being at Christ Church. Unfortunately, entry tickets for the College had sold out, so again it was photos through a doorway. Christ Church features in ‘Twilight of the Gods’ and ‘The Daughters of Cain’, as well as in the first two ‘Harry Potter’ films as part of Hogwarts.

 

It was then time for a final visit, outside the City Centre, catching a bus from a nearby bus stop to Radley College, an independent boarding school for boys, near Radley, Oxfordshire, which was founded in 1847. Radley is one of only three public schools to have retained the boys-only, boarding-only tradition, the others being Harrow and Eton). Old Radleians include (comedy Sherlock) Peter Cook, Desmond Llewellyn (James Bond’s Q, and guest star in two Clive Merrison dramatisations, ironically including ‘The Three Students’), and (Sherlockian author) James Lovegrove. However, it was for its brief starring role as one of the quads of ‘Brompton School’ (along with Eton College) in ‘Young Sherlock Holmes’ that I wished to visit it.

I had initially believed that I would be able to get photos through railings or a doorway, but on arrival it became clear that the College was at the end of a very long drive and comprised several buildings. However, several others got off my bus at the same stop and began walking confidently up the drive, so I joined them. On arrival at the main campus it became clear that the College was hosting ‘The European Transplant & Dialysis Sports Games 2022’, meaning that I was able to move freely without challenge. I was aware that the part of the campus that I needed was just next to the College Chapel, so following useful signs, after around ten minutes I found the required quad, which was where Elizabeth (Sophie Ward) was filmed chasing her dog.

   

Photos taken and I was back at the bus stop opposite the one where I alighted with time to spare to catch my bus back into central Oxford. I then slowly made my way to the railway station, passing the Oxford Castle and Prison (featured in ‘The Way Through The Woods’ and ‘The Wench is Dead’). On arrival at the Station, I took several photos as it appears in nine ‘Inspector Morse’ episodes (almost the most used location).

   

    

Settling back on the train home, passing the crowds at the Reading Festival, I mused on a very busy and very successful day.