Doctors in mystery ask whodunnit

HE’s famous for his role as the sixth incarnation of Doctor Who, but three years ago, Colin Baker took to the stage at the Kenton Theatre as Sherlock Holmes.

The radio play of The Hound of the Baskervilles was such a hit that the veteran actor, along with Terry Molloy, is returning in Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four.

Colin, 82, who lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife, Marion, says: “They can’t keep me away.

“Anyone who went to see The Hound of the Baskervilles will remember how we’re doing it. The reaction last time was so good that if you didn’t come and see it, I’d recommend you to dip your toes in the water of watching a radio play being recorded on stage.

“I am told, because I don’t know because I’m in it, that it really works as something to watch and the story is very good. Terry and I chat a lot, we’re very good friends and he’s a very good actor as well, so I am looking forward to seeing him.

“The Sign of Four is a great story, it’s exotic, it travels around the world and there are strange characters in it and it’s a great cast.”

A fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Colin won his books as a prize for his handwriting.

“At my school, when you got prizes at speech day you got books and you were allowed to suggest what you might like.

“I got the long story novels and the short stories as prizes when I was 16, 17 and read them avidly and loved them.”

With live sound effects taking place on stage, the story is presented as a radio broadcast.

Captain Morstan has gone missing and every year, his daughter Mary (played by Kate Ashmead) receives a valuable pearl. After the body of Bartholomew Sholto is discovered, Detective Holmes and his assistant, Doctor Watson (Molloy), have to investigate. A map of the Agra Fort provides a vital clue…

Directed by Martin Parsons, who also plays Athelney Jones, the cast includes David Sandham as Jonathan Small.

Stage manager Imogen Jones will create the sound effects.

“In terms of what you are to hear,” says Colin, “amazingly we do have horses’ hooves, because of course we’re in Victorian London.

“We’ve got boats, we’ve got a boat chase down the Thames. Whether Imogen has got a big pool of water to splash about in on stage, I don’t know yet and I’ll doubtless find out.

“Basically the story is about Mary Morstan who comes to Sherlock Holmes because her father has disappeared.

“Every year she receives a pearl from an unknown sender and she wants to find out about that. Finding out about it leads to a discovery of a treasure that was stolen back in India in the distant past and her father was involved in it and was killed.

“There is a succession of very strange and bizarre occurrences that happen between then and them finding out what happened at the end. There’s a romantic attachment, not spoiling it but she becomes Dr Watson’s wife.

“Dr Watson and Sherlock are a wonderful combination because for Sherlock, with his intellect and logic, there’s no place in his mind for romance and for the niceties of life.

“Whereas dear old Dr Watson is entirely the opposite. He is not an unintelligent man but he’s a feeling, caring, decent man and [he and Mary] end up together, isn’t that nice?”

Colin has something of a cult following after playing Doctor Who. “Bless [the fans], they’re loyal and I’m still going to the occasional Doctor Who convention somewhere. I speak to Sylvester McCoy sometimes on the telephone, we ring each other up and say, ‘have you been approached by So-and-so about So-and-so?’

“We feed back to each other. I bump into Peter [Davison] occasionally and Paul [McGann].”

As well as Victorian detective novels, Colin enjoys more modern stuff. “My wife and I watched The Thursday Murder Club, it was lovely.

“My wife, who has read the books, said they aren’t quite the characters she’d envisaged but I loved it and I thought they were all great.

“It was very good and nice to see Helen Mirren because she did her first telly with me in 1970. It was an adaptation of the French novelist Balzac, Cousin Bette, and she was my love interest. I had a bed scene with Helen and we were very young, I was more nervous than she was.

“I’m now trying to keep things as gentle as possible at my advanced age, but I’ve got a pilot for a TV comedy series.”

lSherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four — a radio play is at the Kenton Theatre on Thursday, October 2 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £27.75 adults, senior citizens and Friends, £26.75 students and children. For more information, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit thekenton.org.uk