That’s a Bit of Sheer Luck. Old Red Lion Theatre.

It is elementary to see why Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes attracts so many parody writers. Disney’s done it expertly with The Great Mouse Detective. Who can forget Johnny Depp in Sherlock Gnomes. Even high-brow Tom Stoppard had a go in The Real Inspector Hound. The sheer cultural ubiquity of the great detective’s eccentricities, Holmes’ exaggerated sense of self-importance, and the convoluted melodrama of Doyle’s plots are all easy pickings. It is fertile if, dare one say it, unambitious territory for a fringe satirist.

Emily and Beth Rennie’s That’s a Bit of Sheer Luck! A Sherlock Holmes Parody ticks all the standard light spoof boxes – puns, unlikely plot twists, double entendres, slapstick, and deerstalkers – but struggles to find much original to offer in the sub-genre. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data” Holmes says somewhere. The cast are aimable but it has to be said it is also a mistake to put pen to paper before one has a few decent jokes to offer up.

Sherlock Holmes (Lawrence Harp channelling a young David Cameron) is unhappy, so much so that he has sent Dr Watson and Mary off on a well-earned break at Centre Parks. There is a new detective living next door by the name of Sheerluck (Beth Rennie). The newbie has “fashion sense and a nose for justice” and, with the assistance of amnesiac sidekick Joe Whatsitt (Matt Entwistle who boasts an impressive ability to almost do splits), is rapidly hoovering up all the decent cases.

Sherlock resolves to team up with former squeeze, now champion swimmer Irene Paddler (Emily Rennie who, we hear, “has incredible breaststroke”). His aim is to regain the crown of London’s top crime solver and garner the money and fame that goes with it.  Add into the mix Sheerlock’s dog-loving brother Mycruft (Alec Taylor), a hard-working newshound in the diligent form of Gabriela Gibbs, and a pirate king with a secret yearning for Sheerluck’s heart.

In the ensuing plot shenanigans Mycruft’s three prize-winning puppies “Toodle”, “Oo” and “Tarrah” are “plucked from their pappa’s palms” on route to the Canine Union of National Talent dog-show (the competition’s four-letter acronym appears rather too frequently).  The “game is a-paw”. But which of the detectives will find the purloined pups and solve the “terrier-ism”? And just what is a suspicious looking Sherlock hiding in that box? Anticipate mistaken identities, dog costumes, and a Reichenbach Falls-style showdown at the Canine Union.

Writer:  Emily & Beth Rennie

Director:  Phoebe White