A Sherlock Carol

Harlequin Productions presents A Sherlock Carol by Mark Shanahan, starring Artistic Director Aaron Lamb* as Sherlock Holmes. Gerald B. Browning will direct.

Moriarty is dead, to begin with. And Sherlock Holmes is a haunted man. But, when a grown-up Tiny Tim asks Holmes to investigate the death of Ebenezer Scrooge, the Great Detective must use his gifts to solve a Dickens of a Christmas mystery. Six actors take on the beloved characters of Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens in this heartwarming and highly theatrical holiday treat for all ages.

Mark Shanahan’s A Sherlock Carol brings together two of English literature’s most celebrated creations in one story, weaving Victorian mystery, Christmas ghost story, and literary tribute into a single inventive tale. Director Gerald B. Browning, who is also Harlequin’s Director of Production, knows his way around a Dickens classic, having directed Harlequin’s A Christmas Carol last year. In his Director’s Note for the production, Browning describes Shanahan’s play as “funny, heartfelt, delightfully clever, and just a little bit zany,” and points out that the two famous gentlemen at its center have more in common than we might expect. The two classic characters share a misanthropic disdain for human society, each sure the world could do without him and perfectly happy to return the favor. Both are in dire need of reclamation, redemption, and renewal. As Browning puts it: “A Christmas Carol has always been a story about second chances. Dickens reminds us that no matter how far we may have wandered from the people and things that truly matter, it’s never too late to find our way back. Shanahan takes that same lovely idea and offers it to Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps the world’s greatest detective has one more mystery to solve - that of his own heart.”

A Sherlock Carol is deeply personal for playwright Mark Shanahan. In his 2022 essay about the play’s creation, entitled “A Detective, A Miser, and a Kid in the Back Row,” he recalls escaping with his ailing father to Saturday movie double features, where Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes “suggested that somehow, a solution was always on the way - and I believed him.” Decades later, he paired Doyle’s detective with Dickens’s Scrooge, “writing as if I was introducing old friends to each other at a Christmas party - and hoping like hell they’d all get along.” His aim was to return the favor: “Now, I felt I would write a play to remind my hero that he, too, could always find a way through hard times.” His promise to audiences? “Sherlock Holmes always shows up when you need him most. It’s as simple as that. In fact, it’s elementary.” 

Publicity photos: https://harlequinproductions.org/a-sherlock-carol-publicity-photos/
Show page: https://harlequinproductions.org/show/a-sherlock-carol/