CTG Presents Holmes and Watson

Chelmer Theatre, Brisbane

1st-23rd Nov, 2025

Dr Gemma Regan

The CTG close 2025 with a humdinger of a show, gnarly with twists and laden with laughter

The Centenary Theatre Group have delivered a spectacular whizz-bang production of Jeffrey Hatcher’s Holmes and Watson for their final show of 2025. As a traditional whodunnit, it has it all; bursting with intrigue and drama, plus it is hilarious!

Jeffrey Hatcher is one of Minnesota’s premier playwrights with Broadway shows such as Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw. His Holmes and Watson was inspired by four of Conan-Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes adventures: A Study in Scarlet, A Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventure of the Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House, and so parts may seem familiar to the Holmes’ fanatics. 

It was presumed that Sherlock Holmes died with his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, at the Reichenbach waterfall in the last book in The Final Problem. Still, as in all great detective novels, you should never take anything at face value. 

Three lunatics imprisoned on an island three years after the fatal fall are claiming to be the true Sherlock Holmes. It is up to Dr Watson (and you) to determine who, if any, is the super-sleuth and who is the real master of deduction!

CTG pro and fan of the farce, director Gary Kliger, has delivered a superb mystery with a large cast of nine. Justin Ryan is great as the protagonist, a seemingly bumbling Dr Watson who is intent on fingering the true Sherlock Holmes, IF he survived the waterfall. Andrew Wallace plays the inscrutable Dr Evans as the no-nonsense Asylum doctor. He wants to know if any of the lunatics are genuine and to get it sorted quickly by inviting Dr Watson to an identity parade on the island.

Martin Navin-Sanders is the cockney cop, and Erik de Wit the terrifying truncheon-wielding orderly. The three inmates claiming to be Sherlock Holmes are all very different. The tenacious and overly-familiar Holmes 1 played by Brad Oliver, Steve Eggington as the arrogant and pretentious Holmes 2 and Steve Tonks as the mute, deaf and dumb Holmes 3, who is pushed about the stage with a vacant stare. 

Luke Voyer makes his mark with a fiendish inaugural CTG performance as the dastardly Moriarty. The lone female is Michelle Malwkin playing both the subservient Matron and also the ‘woman’ in the cut-scenes. 

The set utilises a giant media screen and film to effectively show the scenery behind a two-level stage. The three waterfall death scenes are creatively designed using the screen, sound effects, clever lighting and dry ice. 

The clever plot is gnarly with twists and laden with Deus ex machina to keep everyone guessing until the very end (a plot device resolved by the unexpected intervention of a new character). As Holmes himself exclaimed in The Boscombe Valley Mystery, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact!”

The CTG and Kliger have delivered a humdinger of a show to close 2025, and I urge you all to see it before the long CTG drought over Christmas!