There are serious treats in store for fans of spy and detective fiction at the Players Theatre this month, when there is one show celebrating Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, 007, and another celebrating Sherlock Holmes, the king of the detectives!
On Saturday 5th February, in The Man with the Golden Pen, Jonathan Coote portrays the creator of Secret Agent 007, as he stands before the audience with a Martini in hand and a terrified look in his eyes. At 42 he is about to do the thing he most fears - he is getting married. He makes two major decisions: one, never to spend winter in England again; two, to write the spy story to end all spy stories. And that is exactly what Ian Fleming did. We are transported to 1952 as Fleming is putting the finishing touches to the first Bond book, Casino Royale, and Bond is with us; the alter ego, an icon of class and everything Fleming aspired to...
This play, written by Mark Burgess, and directed by Simon Downing for Kick In The Head Theatre Productions, has been praised by Ajay Chowdhury of the Ian Fleming Foundation as “An extremely stylish and entertaining piece, capturing the essence and spirit of Ian Fleming... The play succeeds admirably both as entertainment and as an insight into an extraordinary man”.
On Saturday 12th February, in Strictly Sherlock! we join the king of the detectives as he brings to life three of his greatest and most baffling cases, The Sussex Vampire, The Creeping Man and The Devil’s Foot. Strictly Sherlock! has been adapted by Jonathan Goodwin from the originals written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Jonathan also plays Sherlock Holmes and co-directs it with Gary Archer. This original one-man show is brought to us by the “Don’t Go Into the Cellar” theatre company, who specialise in “Victorian theatre with bite”, bringing new adaptations of nineteenth-century literature's greatest ghost and horror stories to modern-day audiences. It follows the success of The Singular Exploits of Sherlock Homes from the same company
Roger Johnson of The Sherlock Homes Journal praised this “Impressive interpretation of Sherlock Holmes – you could swear you were watching Jeremy Brett or Roger Llewellyn”. Take your choice – James Bond or Sherlock Holmes? Or why not come and see both?
