By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Craigdarroch Castle
1050 Joan Crescent
Victoria, BC V8S 3L5
Ticket Reservations:
250-592-5323
Showtimes:
April 3-5 and 9-12 at 8pm.
Two of the greatest icons from the Victorian age may well get to square off in the hallways and byways of Craigdarroch Castle this Spring. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are off to solve “The Case of the Sussex Vampire” in Giggling Iguana Productions’ latest site specific offering playing April 3-12.
Okay, so there is no Dracula, but this adventure takes place, interestingly enough, in different season of the 2014 year than as a Halloween treat. “The Case of the Sussex Vampire” is adapted from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale of the same name by Tony Hubner and Iguana founder Ian Case. Previous works Case adapted includes E.A. Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” H.G. Wells‘ “The War of the Worlds,” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
“Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sussex Vampire” will feature a cast of familiar and new Victoria-based talent including: David Radford as Sherlock Holmes (previously seen in last year’s “Dracula – the Blood is the Life”), Sarah Anne Murphy (seen in Kaleidoscope’s “The Never-ending Story” and “The Rocky Horror Show”), Susie Mullen and Michael Glover (both seen in “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Ian Case reprises the role of Dr. Watson (having played him in “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Speckled Band” at Craigdarroch in 2002 and 2004) and makes the show a family adventure by introducing Emily Case, his daughter and Spectrum Community School drama student, to play young Jacklyn Ferguson.
In this tale, Holmes and Watson are drawn into the enigmatic situation of a Sussex tea merchant whose wife inexplicably displays a disturbing blood lust, putting her newborn son at risk!
Just like previous sojourns into this castle, audiences are going to become embroiled into an interactive environment where they will be lead from room to room as Holmes and Watson gather clues to figure out just what kind of bloody trail is being left behind. In this case, just who is after the infant babe. Can this creature be a changeling creature or a spiritual beast? Or is there a logical reason behind what’s going on.
Holmes has faced terrors like “The Hound of the Baskervilles” before but never has he encountered a truly unknown supernatural agency. Although Doyle is the believer of Spiritualism more than Holmes, who never will believe, just what twists Hubner and Case may offer will no doubt be one for fans of Victorian-age lore to go see.
If a murder is not afoot, then perhaps a spiritual unease will be evoked instead.
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