Tudor Players’ The Hound Of The Baskervilles – 13 October 2026, Sheffield Library Theatre
Review by Claire Taranaski.
We are currently in a great age of laugh out loud comedic theatre shows and Tudor Players have confirmed that they are up there with any professional production when it comes to the genre with their latest self-aware, fourth wall breaking, side splitting, masterclass in comedy production of The Hound Of The Baskervilles.
Based on the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is probably rolling in his grave whilst the audience is rolling in the aisles, this production is adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson and has three cast members playing nearly all of the roles, though this is definitely not a three person show with the other cast members, props, lighting and sound being characters in their own right and everyone possessing perfect comedic timing.
The three main cast members were all outstanding possessing incredible stage presence and comic abilities both as their characters and in fourth wall breaking versions of themselves and the chemistry between them shone through. Siobhan Hible followed in Lucy Lu’s footsteps to confirm Sherlock could definitely have been a girl whilst providing in one evening what she has proved in multiple Tudor Players productions that she can bring to life a wide range of characters successful to life, whilst now adding puppetry to her CV. Charlie Gascoyne-Thompson’s Dr John Watson is her second best comedy performance of all time with the company, she will struggle to ever beat her Queenie on stage, but this is incredible close. However, it was Fran Rooker as both the Sir Baskervilles and Dr Mortimer who was the star of the night, with her picture gallery scene easily able to act as her audition tape for any production and “Dirty Dancing” moment going to stay with me forever. The three of them in the train scene, a homage to classic cinema and Laurel and Hardy was true comedy gold.
The terrific threesome were supported by Alex Appleton, Ross Bannsiter, John Fereday, Lucy Moore, John Moran and Rhiannon Smith-Jones and three puppets as characters, crew and bits of scenery and all of them were faultless and displayed their own comedy talents to the max whilst definitely not being the type of crew who try and sneak about unnoticed. Ross Banister and John Moran deserve a special mention for their homage to The Two Ronnies “Yokels”, which I’m sure Ronnie Corbett would approve of.
Director Joe Gascoyne-Thompson and assistant director Justin Harrison brought the very best out of all involved and made the comic timing and slapstick look faultless. I’m not going to give spoilers but this all came together at it’s absolute best during the first 10 minutes of the second act in a production that celebrated every aspect of comedy from mime to puppetry, physical to puns and not forgetting, that as the cast of Bottom taught us, there is never to many times that someone being punched on set is not funny.
Behind the scenes I must praise everyone involved with the props, lighting, visuals and sound which were all perfectly timed in their use and design from the not too scary hounds to the snippets of “Batman” and dog themed numbers and the window frame. All of this just made a fantastic production even more fantastic.
It’s elementary that after 11 years of reviewing Tudor Players the company continues to surprise me only bettering and bettering their comedic theatre talents with every production and this production is them at their very best, a show not to be missed by comedy theatre fans everywhere and the perfect prescription to get you through the dark October evenings.
