Throughout the year, Head of Speech for Xpress, Amanda Cooper, has been working with the university's drama society, Act One to write, record and produce new radio dramas. So far the first episode of The Secret of Alexander (the secret being she's a girl) is up on iTunes, while The Bullingdon Boys is in production. On Tuesday, the whole six episode series of Sherlock Holmes & The Hoards of Dracula, written and performed by Act One members, was broadcast live in a technical feat involving the most microphones in Xpress history. The series will now be edited into podcasts, soon to be available to download (I'll keep you posted with when).
For a story called The Hoards of Dracula, there wasn't a huge amount of the blood-thirsty Count, but a whole range of literary references, from Frankenstein to Murder on the Orient Express. At its core, of course, was the irresistible bromance between Holmes and Watson. The six episodes all had different writers, but ran together well (credit to directors Rob Thomas and Aleks Ford). Each writer did bring their own style to their episode though, and I have to say Aled Bidder's was my favourite, while Darren Freebury-Jones' felt just a touch too repetitive.
The whole thing was incredibly funny - sometimes silly slapstick or scatological humour, sometimes really clever wit. At one point I actually laughed so hard I cried, although that had a lot to do with the unfortunate wardrobe mishap that revealed more of James Davies than anyone wanted to see. They promised nudity in the advert and they almost delivered!
Speaking of Davies, as the titular character, he joked that he'd based his performance on Benedict Cumberbatch, but I found him much more charismatic than the BBC's sleuth. As his devoted companion Watson, Adam Feltham revealed a real comedy talent. He has an incredibly expressive face - not great for radio - but luckily an equally expressive voice. He also seemed totally unperturbed by having to perform most of the evening in his boxers (Act One's costume department must have a small budget). James 'Rolly' Rollinson was a great choice for narrator, again very funny and with a really strong voice for radio.
I really have to praise the hard work of the whole cast and crew for putting an event like this together to such a high standard, and especially Amanda Cooper and Tom Gerken, without whose dedication none of this would have been possible.
