Theatre review: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes- Atheist Picnic at Lydiard Park

Event: Open Air Garden Theatre
Venue: Lydiard Park, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK.
Date of Performance: Friday 31st July 2015
Performers: Chapterhouse Theatre
Website: 
http://www.chapterhouse.org/show5.html
Writer: Laura Turner
Director: Phillip Stevens


The ideology underpinning this quaint, twee and inoffensively anachronistic play in the park was that ‘progress’ means the abandoning of religion, and that we need to boldly stride into a new world order of humanism, abandoning religion to the dustbin of history where it rightfully belongs.

This disregarding of religion (mainly Christianity) is ubiquitous today, especially in the UK, and especially on the BBC, so it’s no surprise to see that the writer of this play already has BBC writing credits under her belt. Her atheistic ways will fit in very nicely at Jimmy Saville towers, so I wish her all the best. I’m sure that she’ll do very well for herself writing liberally deluded multicultural fantasy plots for EastEnders, or the latest murder or hospital shows where politically correct multiculturalism is forced onto the BBC audience of wilfully ignorant, corporate indoctrinated statists.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this cultural ideology of Godlessness will have been barely noticed by the majority of the audience in Lydiard Park on Friday night 31st July 2015.  I’m equally as sure that the writer herself wouldn’t have noticed it. Why would she? God is silly, right? God is for children, right? God doesn’t exist, right? That’s not a radical point of view in suburban households in the UK of 2015, it’s the majority view, accepted like gravity or the idea that democracy, bombs and taxes equates to freedom.

Laura Turner, the nice lady who wrote this play (and I’m sure that she’s very nice) has written a simple play about Sherlock Holmes, and her main concerns will be about entertainment and clarity, not ideology. Her ideological underpinning of atheism is a cultural assumption. It’s how she thinks, and it’s how she has been taught to think. This indoctrinated, programmed version of reality informs her writing and subconsciously assumes that her audience will share the same cultural, atheistic programming as herself.

If you are taught as a child that God doesn’t exist, then that must mean that he doesn’t exist. It’s not something that you think about, it’s just taken as a given. That’s probably as far as Laura’s thinking goes. God doesn’t exist, of course he doesn’t. Would my teachers and television lie to me? Of course not, and so onto my career as a writer.

I assume that Laura won’t have thought very long and hard about the atheism in her play. Like I said before, it’s a cultural assumption, and all it says to me about the writer is that she was brought up in a UK middle class suburban household, watched television, and went to school, that’s all. I could be wrong, but that’s all I get from her writing.

In ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’ her intention would have been to construct a light-hearted, fun, slightly silly, enjoyable play that would be easily understood by an outdoor audience watching it in a park.

In that sense, she did a fine job. The plot was silly, and easy to follow and inoffensive. The bloke playing Holmes (Matthew Christmas) was suitably eccentric (in a BBC Doctor Who kind of way) and I enjoyed my Ginger Beer as all of the nice, middle class atheists around me drank their wine and rustled for crisps in their picnic hampers. The play was the backdrop to the evening. It rumbled on, serenely, in the background, lots of wine was consumed, and everybody enjoyed a lovely, early evening picnic in Lydiard Park.

My lasting memories of the evening will be of concentrating really hard to hear the dialogue, trying to work out who the villain was, and being slightly shocked, but not that surprised when the ideology of the play became apparent as it began to wrap up. The play was okay. It was very middle class, BBC atheist, tame and polite. It was a mainstream play for people who watch television and think that religion is something for museums, not everyday life.

I didn’t hate it, but that’s probably because I’m not a religious man. If I were a regular churchgoer then I’d probably be quite offended, but that’s the mainstream in the UK today. The mainstream has abandoned Christianity and abandoned tradition. I’m old. I notice these things. It happened slowly, but it’s the norm now. Jesus might be alive, but there’s little sign of him in the UK of 2015. The people have turned to humanism. God no longer exists. The people are their own gods now. Does that sound dangerous to you? I am living in a society that has rejected God. That can’t be good, can it? What do you think about it? Seriously, I want to know.


Rating: 6/10 (Easy to follow, silly, fun, but it has an ideological underpinning that left me feeling cold)