Sherlock Holmes is back on the case! Colin Baker will be starring in a live radio play adaptation of The Sign Of Four. Best known as the Sixth Doctor in Doctor Who, Colin has had a long and varied stage and screen career.
The Sign of Four also sees the return of Terry Molloy (The Archers) as Dr Watson.The Crime and Comedy Theatre Company are the show’s producers.
The production tours from 23 Sep to 23 Oct. It visits Tamworth, Harrogate, Newark, Bishop’s Stortford, Winchester, Henley, Neath, Taunton, Paignton, Andover, Runcorn, Scunthorpe and Newtown, with further dates next Spring.
Ticket link:
https://crimeandcomedytheatrecompany.co.uk/dates
Colin joined me for a telephone interview on a busy day promoting the show.
On Holmes …
This is your second time playing the Great Detective on stage. Why do you think the character is so iconic?
Well, I suppose the proof of the pudding is in the eating in a sense! People still think he was a real person and write letters to Baker Street after all these years. It means Conan Doyle got something right!
In a sense it’s comparable to Doctor Who, the idea of these people who are out there and can come and sort out all your problems, like The Lone Ranger or The Magnificent Seven.
We all hope that there is something outside of us, other than a mystical being in the sky, a real person that can come and sort everything out for us.
Sherlock Holmes does it very well, and he’s an interesting character. Not entirely loveable, very arrogant and cerebral, which is why Dr Watson is with him to bring a bit of humanity.
Good old Terry Molloy, who was my Davros in Doctor Who, plays Watson again, and this time we’re doing The Sign of Four.
It’s quite a complex book, with a missing treasure and a glamourous woman receiving pearls every year without knowing who they are from. It’s all done as if on the radio; Toby the dog is in it, and the Baker Street Irregulars.
We’ve done The Hound of the Baskervilles already, and I was gratified that it worked so well. Audiences seem to love sitting there in a theatre, watching people in a radio recording studio on stage. It’s entirely real except it’s not broadcasting anywhere except to the audience.
How do you find this works in a stage play setting? Do you enjoy working in this way?
Frankly, I was amazed that it worked as well as it did. I didn’t think people would want to sit and watch people read something!
I’m not here trying to do myself out of an audience, because the audience that comes all wait till afterwards and say that was brilliant, we loved it.
I have to say a lot of my best drama experience has been listening to a radio play because when they say ‘she’s good looking, isn’t she?’, every one of us has a different idea. On telly, if someone says that, the audience can go ‘well, my mother’s better looking than that!’
So the audience is a willing participant. They’re doing as much of the work as we are! I am not obvious casting for Sherlock Holmes to look at, sadly, because it’s a lovely part.
But on audio, I flatter myself that I’m rather good casting. I may have the voice for him.
Other characters …
Of course you have played another iconic character as the 6th Doctor, and continue to contribute to audio adventures for Big Finish. How do you find your continuing association with the role?
I’m not embarrassed by it. Some other actors want to delete the thing that made them famous.
There was a point when I’d done more Doctor Who stories than any other actor. I’ve done 200 on audio for Big Finish. I love doing these 2-hour dramas. I’m doing one next weekend.
On television I was unlucky enough to have been playing the part when the powers that be at the BBC weren’t that fond of the programme.
I can understand in a way, when you are running things you want programmes that make your own mark.
We discuss the Doctor’s arrogance.
In fact, some of the more interesting characters in fiction are ones that start off negative.
When you’re reading Pride and Prejudice, for the first half of the book you find Darcy unpleasant and unbearable, but it turns out he’s the only really decent person in it. It’s the same with Harry Potter and Snape. It’s interesting to show a character’s layers bit by bit, to find out about them.
The polite way of describing my version of the Doctor is that he didn’t tolerate fools gladly.
New audiences are also enjoying you in The Brothers, from 50 years ago. Has its popularity in repeat showings surprised you?
My wife and I are watching it again [on Talking Pictures TV], as it’s so long ago I can’t remember any of it! I can remember bits, but we’re now up to the last series and for some reason. it’s all coming as a great surprise to me.
I’m amazed how good most of it is. The standard of writing was good. They don’t create scenes like that any more, those long boardroom scenes. People say I was a villain, but when I’m watching I’m thinking ‘they’re all idiots, and Paul Merroney is the only sane one in it!’
It was a better series than I think I realised at the time, when you compare it with similar offerings now. You’re not cutting every five seconds to another scene. You find out about people.
They take their time telling the story, and its character-driven as well as story-driven. I’m really quite proud of it. It’s not like watching myself. It was fifty years ago! It’s some other young guy with hair!
I know it was me, but it is like watching somebody else. To be honest, usually I watch myself and go ‘oh no’ but in The Brothers I think, ‘you’re not bad, actually’.
Back to Holmes!
Have you always been interested in Sherlock Holmes? How did you get involved in this tour?
I got a copy of the Sherlock Holmes long stories as a school prize. One of them is The Sign of Four, so I read them years ago and enjoyed them then.
I remembered those stories, so when I was asked to do these one-night tours of Sherlock Holmes, I said yes. We do a night in each place, three or four a week, which is a bit tiring at my age, but last year we did the Baskervilles and it worked really well.
The show is a mix of having the story read to you and seeing the foley operator doing the effects, the horses’ hooves, doors closing, and all that.
The story is of Dr Watson meeting his future wife, Mary Morstan, and that’s quite a sweet story.
The rest of The Sign of Four is very dense and challenging with chases down the river in speedboats, all on stage.
Which version of Holmes do you admire the most?
I think Basil Rathbone is the one, possibly because he was the first I ever saw in those old black and white films. Black and white works well for Sherlock Holmes.
It was done in a time that was closer to the actual time that the stories were written, and was made all the more credible by that.
I thought Jeremy Brett was brilliant. He added in all the things that Basil Rathbone wasn’t allowed to do, the drug use and all that sort of stuff.
Sherlock Holmes was a flawed character, and most dramatisations paper over that.
Wrapping up …
How would you most like to be remembered in your career?
That’s a tricky one. I’d like to be remembered as someone that the other actors enjoyed working with.
I enjoyed playing both Paul Merroney and the Doctor, as well as lots of stage roles I was lucky enough to play.
I loved doing Privates on Parade as Terri Dennis [on stage in 1991], playing Marlene Dietrich, Vera Lynn and Carmen Miranda!
We end the interview talking about the North West of England where we were both brought up, me in Oldham and Colin in Rochdale – fellow Northerners!
You can see Colin Baker in The Sign of Four on tour for a month from the 23 Sep with tickets at crimeandcomedytheatrecompany.co.uk/dates/