Baskerville is a sort of comedic, farcical take on the classic Hound of the Baskervilles story.

It’s mystery, suspense, murder, horror… It’s also quite funny. 

Ken Ludwig, the writer, has given it a sort of irreverent take with a very small cast.

Lots of different characters, street urchin, little 14 year old kid, young woman, older Swedish woman, young German woman… testing that sweet, sweet accent work.

The rehearsals have been absolutely fantastic so far. They are the most, most wonderful, incredibly talented group of actors.

It’s sort of very fast-paced in terms of continuity, there’s so many bits you’ve got to get under control before you can sort of run. So we’re just getting to grips with that right now.

It’s so inclusive for an audience, rather than us running off stage and putting another hat on, you see it on stage and I think there’s a lot of fun in that as well.

The sort of saturation and contrast is just turned up a little bit in this adaptation because of that mad, theatricality you’ve got of people chasing around, wigs flying everywhere, costumes but not hiding that. 

It can go anywhere as it were and there’ll be lots of surprises.

It’s a different and very new take on the Sherlock Holmes/Watson relationship and on The Hound of the Baskervilles story so it’s definitely something that people won’t have seen before. Equally, I think if you really love the Sherlock Holmes character and the story and all of the books that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, then there’ll be plenty there for you.

There’s something satisfying about seeing this sort of well-known, historical, fictional character on stage.

Holmes is such a brilliant problem solver. He’s got this sort of super human quality to him that fascinates people. He’s bohemian, he’s a bit of a rebel and he doesn’t play things by the book as well. I think we all want to be Holmes, really. 

They’re a nice double act, Watson and Holmes and what I think is really important about that relationship, even in a comedy, you really feel like they have a great friendship and love for one another.

It’s that brilliant cocktail of a good old whodunit murder mystery with a big sweeping adventure story and then this extra layer in this adaptation particularly is of high farce so it’s turned into a comedy as well. So, if we can make you jump and then make you giggle, we’ll be having a good night, you know.

Baskerville - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery is at the Playhouse, Sat 9 Dec to Sat 13 Jan 2018