Really big finish… The Hound of the Baskervilles (2022), Barbican with BBC Symphony conducted by Timothy Brock

I love radio plays, from the BBC or specialist imprints like Big Finish, particularly, as the performers always say, the format allows you to be the set designer, art director and cinematographer, creating your own visuals in response to the aural narrative, the music and the words. It is, as we media types say, engaging, “lean forward” or “hot media” in Marshall McLuhan theorised, something you need to concentrate on unlike most modern films who leap out of the screen with disjointed menace, multitracked drums beating you senseless to cover the sheer lack of real originality, purpose and coherence. No, what we really want for a dramatic night out is a group of actors being directed from the stalls by their scriptwriter whilst the full might of the BBC Symphony Orchestra plays out music composed by the same man all marshalled by one of the leading cinematic conductors on this planet.

 

Neil Brand is a multitalented man but he’s also a bravely ambitious one in producing this work under such circumstances and it was a pre-Christmas stunner.

 

The last time I saw The Hound at the Barbican it was the Stoll silent film version from 1921 directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Eille Norwood, the only Sherlock Holmes personally approved by the original author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and, the accompaniment was provided by one Neil Brand. Fast forward seven years and it’s another chance to be genuinely astounded by the energy and imagination with which Neil's constructs his orchestral scores. There’s an obvious connection between being able to work with sight and no sound and sound with no sight, but Lord knows how it's accomplished...

 

Doyle's favourite Sherlock

Neil is so well versed in the conventions of scoring it comes across in the language of his music, tonight cinematic on stage even as the small group of players read from scripts, as you do in a radio drama, even one with this much orchestral clout. But he’s not just a technician, Neil’s music has instinct and heart and he has great lines that uplift and threaten, create suspense and dread always helping the story along with almost imperceptible prompting. Perhaps his extensive grounding in silent film has reinforced his collaborative instinct and the need to let the narrative breathe whilst others, sometimes, smother what’s on screen with too much of their own ideas: it’s a duet not a cover version.

 

I have seen this with Neil’s scores for Robin Hood and Blackmail at Saffron Hall as well as The Lodger in Pordenone’s Teatro Verdi, which ended the magnificent festival of 2019 on such a high note. Tonight’s entertainment was styled as a concert drama for actors and orchestra and in this context, it was part radio play, part theatre and part concert, all held together by stage director David Hunter as well as his partner in the stalls and Timothy Brock with the 50-piece orchestra set out in forceful formation on the Barbican stage.

 

The actors were positioned in a thin strip along the front of the stage and the drama switched from voice to orchestra throughout, occasionally threatening to overwhelm the script but only ever heightening the drama. Baskervilles is one of those stories we all think we know and, whilst I was mentally reaching back to the Elvey film for imagery, the story showed added dimensions, not least because it allows Watson to shine whilst The Great Detective is seemingly otherwise engaged.

 

Centre stage: Mark Gatiss and Sanjeev Bhaskar

That detective was played by the protean Mark Gatiss who tonight became only the second actor, after Christopher Lee, to play both Holmes brothers, Mycroft and Sherlock. He was cleverly commanding of course and is always so good at seeming one step ahead. His Watson was Sanjeev Bhaskar who stepped up wonderfully as the redoubtable Doctor faced with confronting the horrors of the hound without his mentor. Watson is always a man of action though and Sanjeev ran with it.

 

They were joined by another fourteen characters played by just five actors, Ewan Bailey (Barrymore/Mycroft/narrator), Clare Corbett (Mrs Barrymore/Beryl Stapleton/Billy/narrator), Sam Dale (Dr Mortimer/Frankland/narrator), Ryan Early (Henry Baskerville/narrator) and (Carl Prekopp Stapleton/Selden/narrator). They are all experienced voice artistes and you didn’t have to close your eyes to hear them as someone completely different, yes, even Clare as Sherlock’s chirpy Cockney gofer, Billy.

 

In their hands we moved from 222b Baker Street to misty moors and gigantic halls, from the sanity of Capital rationality to the wuthering madness of impossible creatures, old legends, escaped murderers and irresistible improbabilities racing toward immovable intellect. “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…" sometimes Neil seems impossible but then he proves his actuality time and again.

 

Timothy Brock conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra

It was a grand experience of dramatic musical theatre and I do hope the BBC caught the loud whooping from the right-hand side of the stalls – that was Michelle Facey! You can find out for yourself when the production is screened on BBC 4 in 2023. Before that it will feature in audio-only on BBC Radio 3 and it will be fascinating again to imagine it all again. But I won’t forget the experience of seeing it all come together, dozens of people working together to create a wondrous entertainment and to fill our minds with Devonshire moors, hellish hounds and the battle of the most noble intellect against the evil of men.

 

If this was on my theatre blog it would have ***** stars. Happy Christmas every one!

 

Neil Brand takes a bow having done Sherlock proud.