This is absolutely, positively the worst Jack the Ripper play ever written. Rock bottom! It can only improve from here! Sherlock Holmes, a blithering idiot who finds clues only by chance, is made to juggle 4 cases at once. a) Jack the Ripper. b) Prof. Moriarty. c) something about the Maharajah of Chutney, and, o yes, d) a giant rat of Sumatra. It's a musical, so this stupid plot mercifully stops dead every 5 minutes so we can hear lyrics like these:
His handy little snipper
Is ready for crime!
We can't be very chipper
While he's in his prime!
He's dangerous and slipper-
Y, and how our fears climb
To know Jack has come back!
Our courage is slipping
To think he is having
A ripping good time!
You probably won't believe this, but that's the best song in the show. The solution is the most ridiculous "Jill the Ripper" theory I've ever heard. Which is at least faithful to Doyle's own foolish opinion. But this Jill is a woman to whom no clues have pointed, and who is simply caught and unmasked in a "suprise ending." (Stage directions make it clear Jack should be played in Act I by the actor who plays Holmes, in order to mislead the audience about Jack's height and gender. This is blatant deception.) The motive? To discredit Holmes by comitting unsolvable crimes on his watch. But this woman is Sherlock's friend, so why should she want to discredit him? um, we really can't explain that right now, because it's time for another song ... What in the world was Kelly thinking? What posessed him to dredge out from the waste basket every dumb Holmes-and-Watson joke he's ever heard, string them together with a bunch of silly songs, and call it a "spoof?" |
