Doctor Who legends Colin Baker and Terry Molloy are to reprise their roles as Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson for a UK tour of Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four: The Radio Play Live On Stage.
After their hugely successful portrayals as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in last year’s stage adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Baker, who played the sixth incarnation of the Doctor from 1984 to 1986, and Terry Molloy, who played Davros, creator of the Daleks in the long running series opposite Baker’s Doctor and is also well know as The Archers’ Mike Tucker, a role he played for more than 40 years, reunite on stage in another classic adventure featuring the world’s only consulting detective and his trusty sidekick, The Sign Of Four.
What has become of Captain Morstan and why does his daughter now receive a valuable pearl every year from an anonymous benefactor? What begins as a curious puzzle soon becomes a terrifying murder hunt, with the discovery of a missing fortune, a locked room and the murdered body of Bartholomew Sholto. But who committed these heinous, inexplicable crimes and how do they involve a map of the far-off Agra Fort?
The case of The Sign Of Four stretches all of Sherlock Holmes’ powers of deduction in a mystery that was born in war-torn India and now stalks Victorian London, fuelled by the vengeance of a seemingly unstoppable, cut-throat gang. With the help of the Baker Street Irregulars and Dr Watson’s new love Mary, can Holmes finally bring the gang’s malicious leader to justice, recover the stolen treasure, and reveal the hideous truth behind the riddle of The Sign Of Four?
Baker, also well remembered as ruthless banker Paul Merroney in the Seventies’ BBC series The Brothers (currently enjoying a renaissance on Talking Pictures TV), says, “When I was at school, if you won a prize, it was always a book. You were allowed to choose your own book and I chose the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes, which I still have at home with the little Upper Fourth Handwriting Prize certificate, because I enjoyed reading them avidly. I love the writings of Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens, so the idea of bringing Sherlock Holmes to life is something I never anticipated. They’re such cracking good stories, they really stand the test of time, and I’m portraying him now. It’s all rather exciting.”
Molly adds, “Colin and I are great friends and we’ve worked together many, many times since we met on Doctor Who in 1984, when we hit it off from the start. That was in Attack Of The Cybermen, and I then played Davros, leader of the Daleks. It was Colin who suggested I play Dr Watson to his Sherlock Holmes when we toured in The Hound Of The Baskervilles in 2022, and after the success of that it’s wonderful to recreate our partnership in another classic adventure.”
Directed by Martin Parsons and presented by Crime and Comedy Theatre Company as a radio play live on stage, the setting of the piece is a radio studio where the actors ready, as if for a radio broadcast, with all sound effects created live, transporting the audience to the streets of Victorian London.
The cast is completed by Kate Ashmead as Mary Morstan, David Sandham as Jonathan Small, Martin Parsons as Athelney Jones, and Imogen Jones as Stage Manager and Live Sounds Effects Operator. All other parts are played by members of the Company
THE SIGN OF FOUR 2025 TOUR DATES
23 September Tamworth Assembly Rooms | 24 September Harrogate Theatre | 25 September Newark Palace Theatre | 27 September Bishop’s Stortford South Mill Arts | 30 September & 1 October Winchester Theatre Royal | 2 October Henley Kenton Theatre | 15 October Neath Gwyn Hall | 16 October Taunton Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre | 17 October Paignton Palace Theatre | 18 October Andover The Lights | 20 October Runcorn Brindley Theatre | 21 October Scunthorpe Plowright Theatre | 23 October Newtown The Hafren.
Ticket booking details here.
