one4review | On 29, Aug 2026

For some reason, Sherlock Holmes is as reliable a draw at the Edinburgh Fringe as Shakespeare and probably for good reason. The stories are regarded as classics and, despite their age, are still very readable and enjoyable today. Likewise the works of HP Lovecraft, which created the genre of cosmic horror, are always popular with a certain kind of reader (who probably has more than one black hoodie). The blending of Lovecraft and Holmes is actually so common it’s almost a genre in itself, with novels, films and video games, to name just a few. Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Innsmouth Crown is an attempt to deliver a story in this vein, and, unfortunately, it fails.

Telling the story of Holmes’ brush with a spooky evil crown that drives him mad, the plot of the play is a mess from start to finish. Beginning with Doctor Watson’s granddaughter who discovers her grandfather was the companion of the famous sleuth while cleaning out her deceased mother’s belongings, we are immediately pulled into a flashback of her mother interviewing Watson which just as immediately pulls us into a second flashback of Holmes and Watson in Baker Street, receiving an evil crown. I could go into more detail but honestly, it’s downhill from there.

Fans of Holmes will be instantly put off when Watson describes his companion as constantly wearing a deerstalker hat, something that was popularised in films but is often pointed at as the way to identify someone who doesn’t know Holmes from the original works. Couple that with Watson and Holmes constantly referring to each other by their first names and it’s like pouring itching powder in the pants of half the audience this show was supposedly written for. These little niggles could at first be dismissed as the writer having a bit of a play with established convention but they added up and up until I was convinced that the playwright had never actually bothered to familiarise themselves with the original characters or their stories at all which begs the question, why did they bother in the first place?

Needless to say (but to say it anyway) the Lovecraftian elements are equally woeful. It’s mostly just the names “Innsmouth” and “Arkham”, we don’t even get a reference to Miskatonic University or the Necronomicon let alone Cthulhu or Dagon.

I could go on about the bad writing, but I don’t really want to flog a dead horse. It is not good. No part of it is good.

Unfortunately, this also extends to the rest of the performance which I can comfortably say was the worst show I’ve seen at the Fringe this year and probably ever. Bad writing is a personal bugbear of mine, but it’s not just that. The show is noticeably underrehearsed with actors often flubbing lines and talking over each other (at one point, Watson called Holmes “John” and didn’t seem to even notice). While the actor playing Holmes does his best with what he’s got, the other actors don’t have enough to work with and just say their lines seemingly to get it over and done with.

It is the cheapest looking show I’ve ever seen, with “costumes” that are clearly just modern day clothes, including a synthetic cape for Holmes that he wore inside out throughout the performance. Watson’s Bowler hat is a cardboard Trilby. The second-hand furniture purchased for the performance hadn’t been dusted. At one point Holmes is playing a “piccolo” (presumably because the production failed to find a violin) which is just the head of a normal flute. The prop “old” photographs are just regular photos and are clearly visible to the audience. At some point it crosses the line from lazy to incompetent to insulting. It ceased feeling like something that people did badly to something people failed to care if they did well.

I don’t want to be harsh because this is clearly a passion project by an amateur artist and may well be the first thing they’ve ever brought to production. It’s almost certainly written by one of the cast (and I have a pretty strong suspicion which one) and I don’t want to discourage them from trying to make art. But also, the tickets are expensive and the promise is leagues outside of what they’re capable of delivering at this point. Because of the strong concept the show has managed to sell out several nights which is frankly a disgrace considering the considerably better and cheaper shows available which someone actually bothered to try with.

Not Holmes, not Lovecraft, not scary, not a mystery, not funny, not engaging, not professional and 100% not worth your time.

*
Reviewed by Tom
TheSpace@Surgeons Hall
Until 29 August