Sherlock Holmes Play Delights Vientiane Audience

Source: Vientiane Times

A play featuring the escapades of Sherlock Holmes drew a large crowd at the Mercure Vientiane hotel on Friday night, with everyone keen to see this unusual and fascinating production.

The hour-long play starred Daniel Foley and Will White and was very well received.

Sherlock Holmes is known to people the world over as a fictional private detective, whose character was created by the British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Holmes is known for his proficiency in observation, forensic science, and logical reasoning, which he employs when investigating cases for a wide variety of clients, including London’s Scotland Yard police headquarters.

The play was produced by the London-based theatre company Performance Exchange. Founded in 1981 as an “exchange” of performers, designers, actors, writers and directors, Performance Exchange has toured 37 countries staging exciting, thought-provoking, cross-cultural theatre productions.

Attending the event on Friday were British Ambassador Mr Hugh Evans, Singaporean Ambassador Mr Dominic Goh Kian Swee, Malaysian Ambassador Mr Mohd Aini Ata, Lao officials, and members of the public.

Before the play got underway, Mr Evans gave a speech to welcome the audience, explain the background of the event and the exploits of Sherlock Holmes, and wished the audience a happy evening.

The event was organised by the British Embassy in cooperation with the Mercure Vientiane. The play was the latest in a series of cultural entertainment activities hosted by the Mercure.

Foley is no stranger to the Mercure Vientiane stage, having presented “Shakespeare for Dummies” and “Dinner with Beckett” to sell-out audiences here in the last year.

Sherlock Holmes first appeared in print in 1887 (in A Study in Scarlet). The character’s popularity became widespread with the first series of short stories in The Strand magazine, beginning with “A Scandal in Bohemia” in 1891.

Additional tales appeared from then until 1927, eventually totalling four novels and 56 short stories.
Though not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is arguably the best known, with Guinness World Records listing him as the “most portrayed movie character” in history.

Holmes’s popularity and fame are such that many have believed him to be not a fictional character but a real individual; numerous literary and fan societies have been founded that pretend to operate on this principle.

Widely considered a British cultural icon, the character and stories have had a profound and lasting effect on mystery writing and popular culture as a whole, with the original tales as well as thousands written by authors other than Conan Doyle being adapted into stage and radio plays, television, films, video games, and other media for over a hundred years.