The Barn Theatre in Cirencester has today announced that Drama Desk Award nominee Adam Meggido (Peter Pan Goes Wrong, Showstopper! The Improvised Musical) will direct their first production of 2024, which will be the world premiere of Toby Hulse & Ross Smith’s play Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Fiend, running at the Cotswold venue from Friday 26 January – Friday 9 March, with a press performance on Monday 29 January.
Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Fiend is set in a world in which Conan Doyle’s fictional Victorian London, in an act of wild fantasy, collides with the actual London of 1888 and the Whitechapel Murders. The two-act comedy mercilessly mines the familiar cliches of the Sherlock Holmes stories whilst ruthlessly exposing the lurid press-fuelled fictions of the Jack the Ripper industry.
A hilarious mix of Basil Rathbone, The 39 Steps, Extras, and Cunk on Britain, using the full technical possibilities of the Barn Theatre’s stage; a thrilling, theatrical, and playful hansom carriage ride through the darkest parts of our collective imaginations.
Adam Meggido, who co-created and directed the Olivier Award-winning Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and recently received Drama Desk Awards and Outer Critics Circle nominations for his direction of the Broadway transfer of Peter Pan Goes Wrong, will direct the production. Full creative team and casting to be announced.
This will mark the second play by Hulse that the Barn Theatre has produced following their Built By Barn production of his comedy adaptation of the classic Around the World in Eighty Days earlier this year.
The new Built By Barn production marks the world premiere of Hulse & Smith’s new revision of Hulse’s play, the prior version first debuted as Sherlock Holmes and the Crimson Cobbles at The Theatre Chipping Norton in 2017.
Adam Meggido said, “As a lifelong fan of the Sherlock Holmes canon, I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Toby Hulse and the Barn on a new outing for the great detective. This is a playful and provocative new piece of work, and I’m looking forward to starting 2024 with a bold theatrical bang.”
Toby Hulse said, “I am so excited to be working with the Barn again, after its fantastic production of Around the World in Eighty Days. Sherlock Holmes and the Whitechapel Fiend is an extraordinary and unexpected new adventure for the world’s greatest detective, and with the exceptional talents of Adam Meggido as director, the show promises to be thrilling, wildly imaginative, and very, very funny.”.
Since launching in 2018, the Barn Theatre has gained national recognition having produced over 20 Built by Barn shows and being awarded The Stage Awards’ Best Fringe Theatre of the Year Award 2019. The theatre is currently celebrating its fifth anniversary with a season that has included world premieres of Simon Reade’s adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s Waiting For Anya, Jonathan Lynn’s final instalment of his classic series I’m Sorry Prime Minister, I Can’t Quite Remember, as well as a reimagined revival production of the musical Once and the world premiere of a musical adaptation of Treasure Island.
More information can be found at www.barntheatre.org.uk
