Sound & Fury’s “Sherlock Holmes”: More Fun Than A Barrel Of Moriartys – Adelaide Fringe Review

Live From Tandanya – Tandanya Arts Café, Fri 24 Feb. Sound & Fury are regular Fringe visitors and in recent years have parodied Shakespeare, Game Of Thrones and more, although those were really only vague leaping-off points for them to throw in all sorts of loopy tangents and indeed a bit of everything as they got more and more irresistibly silly. Again making Tandanya their home (and making jokes about the stage, the sangria and so forth in the pre-show, supposedly entertainment-free section), Richard, Patrick and Aussie Shane then proceeded to offer their version of William Shakespeare’s Sherlock Holmes (?), which began with some lovely business involving unreliable torches in the darkness and arguments over who exactly was going to play who (and eventually it was determined that Patrick would be a wonderfully dim Sherlock, Richard the long-suffering Dr. Watson and Shane fill in as the other frequently dragged-up characters). Then it was all about the stabbing murder of an English society type (don’t look too closely at who or what is playing the corpse), lots of running around and larking about, a visit to a music hall (during which an apparently hapless punter was reigned in to perform and did a surprisingly cool job of it), liberal use of a Groucho Marx disguise, a bit of The Who lyrics (?), a riff of sub-Gilbert-And-Sullivan singing and prancing, some gloriously corny puns, a swipe at Trump and moments of giggly improvisation where the guys were obviously having as much fun as the audience (no matter how much the S&F lads good-naturedly insulted us). More fun than a barrel of Moriartys, this is once again one of the comic highlights of the Fringe, and you do have to wonder what the guys are going to be satirising next, particularly as they might be running out of targets (they’ve been coming here, in one form or another, since 2002, after all). Or are they? Maybe next year they could do Quentin Tarantino’s The Walking Dead, with Richard as John Travolta playing Rick, Patrick as Uma Thurman playing Michonne, and Shane as 1000 zombies? 4 stars Dave Bradley Sound & Fury’s “Sherlock Holmes” continues at Live From Tandanya – Tandanya Arts Café, at various times, until Sun 19 Mar. Book at FringeTIX on 1300 621 255 or adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix. Click HERE to purchase your tickets. #ADLfringe