Bert Coules

Watson and Holmes

A stage play for two actors and one walk-on

Doyle's characters in late middle-age, before and after Sherlock Holmes' baffling early retirement and retreat into seclusion.

In act one, a desperate client arrives at 221B Baker Street and promptly dies, leading to a virtuoso display of observation, deduction and forensic science as Holmes works out exactly who he is and why he came there.

In act two, John Watson is making a rare visit to the detective in his isolated retirement cottage in the country. While Holmes re-enacts the events of a recent mystery, Watson shows his own powers of detection as he discovers not only the truth about an unexplained death but also the dark reason why Holmes turned his back on work, fame and London.

Based on my original radio mystery The Abergavenny Murder and my dramatisation of Doyle's The Lion's Mane, the play is a light-hearted but poignant exploration of the famous friendship.