'MS. HOLMES AND MS. WATSON': VERY LITTLE IS AFOOT
- Reda Belhadfa
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
Reda Belhadfa looks back at the now-ended Christmas production of Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson to dissect how the cannibalised feminism of Kate Hamill's retelling of Conan Doyle's classic evacuates both the art form and the movement of any material force.
Photography courtesy of Arcola Theatre/Alex Brenner
At first glance you might assume - from it's title at the very least - that the Arcola Theatre production of Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson would be a (very) simple 21st century gender swapped retelling of Conan Doyle’s classic Sherlock character. And you’d be right: given a bingo card of cliches, it seems that this one has gone out of it’s way to tick every box. From lines so painfully obvious that the audience mouths them before they are shouted at you to “twists” which aren’t so much twists as simple logical progressions, this play was not a let down - it was exactly what I expected.
The promised twist, billeted as “feminist” in it’s retelling is anything but. Ostensibly this feminist twist is that, gasp, Sherlock and Watson, beloved homoerotic heroes, are now women! However, the gender swap is only skin deep: nothing about the characters has been rewritten in any meaningful way to make the pair feminist - except for the fact that, somehow, the gay subtext of the duo has been lost entirely in translation. It is such a fundamental misuse of the term feminist that it makes this author regret her gender identity.
A recurring motif of the play, Dr - sorry, I mean, Ms. - Watsons' Americanness can’t help but strike a strange cord. As something of an American myself, I find her constant self-deprecation and immolation at the altar of “British excellence” simply unrealistic. In my experience no British person, save a drunk college frat boy type shouting inexplicably at the bar about Elon Musk, has ever taken such particular offence to my accent. Yet from the word go, the play ceaselessly lampoons our American friend. I would mind slightly less if the jokes were not such low-hanging fruit, culminating ultimately in a ham-fisted gag wherein an eccentric screaming (and supposedly Texan? The accent was on par to a Dick Van Dyke cockney performance) billionaire busts in to the scene, wearing a rubber Trump mask and screaming “yee-haw”. Yee-haw indeed my Appalachian friend.
My confusion at this fever-dream of randomly strung together happenings was only compounded by my sad discovery that this play was in fact, written by an American. I can only suppose what happened here was a feeble (see: neoliberal) attempt by playwright Kate Hamill (named "Playwright of the Year" by the Wallstreet Journal in 2017) to appeal to a British audience, having clearly never met a British audience, or I doubt even ever set foot in London.
Now, while the writing may have been quite objectionable, less some cheap yucks, a few members of the crew must be singled out for true kudos. While avoiding eye contact with the struggling actors and simply distraught audience members, my eye was caught by the set. Unique, well built, and incredibly deeply thought out, with details telling a story much richer than the drama unfolding in front of us. What particularly struck me is how versatile it was, seamlessly using the same stage, unusually located in a small square on the floor, with parts pulling out, turning or lighting up to convincingly move us from one location the next. And it was pretty to boot!
Though it may seem this review is simply criticism for the sake of being critical, and while we may have given Ms. Holmes and Ms. Watson a good ribbing, what underlies this is genuine concern and upset. Namely, the cannibalisation of feminism by performances like this, who denigrate the dignity of a movement by using cheap buzz words to move cheap tickets. When watching plays, especially any kind of “reimagining” (a loathsome word for the theatre) we should ask “why”? Why now, why this play, and how does this advance, in any way, new or revolutionary ways of thinking, of seeing movements?
Reflecting on this, I can only conclude that Hamill's answer would lie somewhere along the lines of “because I said so.” Not only is this play a monstrous misrepresentation of feminism, it also is taking up space at a hallowed institution like the Arcola, space which could be better used to uplift real, serious and critical plays by young and struggling playwrights. I leave you with one final reminder: whenever going to watch a half-baked “reimagining”, remember that representation does not equal liberation.
Reda Belhadfa is a London-based script writer and critic.
