Cast Announced for UK Premiere of BASKERVILLE: A SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY at The Playhouse

The legendary Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson will be played by James Taylor and Patrick Robinson in the UK premiere of playwright Ken Ludwig's Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery.

Jay Taylor will play the charismatic and cunning Sherlock Holmes on his search for the hideous Baskerville beast, whose legend has haunted Baskerville Hall for years. Taylor joins the cast following a run on the West End and has featured in TV series Misfits, Holby City and most recently the ITV drama Prime Suspect 1973.

Holmes is joined by his associate and compelling narrator Dr Watson, played by Patrick Robinson. A former actor for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Robinson is known for his long-standing role as Dr Martin 'Ash' Ashford in Casualty and for reaching the semi-finals of Strictly Come Dancing 2013. He has previously appeared at the Playhouse in Rough Crossings (2007).

Joining Taylor and Robinson to play a host of different characters are Bessie Carter, Ryan Pope and LIPA graduate Edward Harrison, who appeared at the Playhouse in Sex and the Three Day Week (2014). The trio bring 35 vivid characters to life including the unwitting victim Sir Charles Baskerville, his close friend Dr Mortimer and Holmes' loyal landlady Mr. Hudson.

After the rich landowner Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead, Holmes and Watson are quick onto the trail of a legendary hound that lives on the moors of Dartmoor, in a race against time to save the next heir to Baskerville Hall.

Directed by Loveday Ingram Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery opens for previews on Saturday 9 December and runs until Saturday 13 January. Tickets are on sale now from the Everyman & Playhouse Box Office by calling 0151 709 4776 or visiting www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/baskerville.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Jay Taylor

Whilst Training: Mothers & Sons, In the Jungle of Cities, The Good Soldier, Assassins, Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads, The Man of Mode, The Duchess of Malfi, The Last Carnival, The Great Theatre of the World, Twelfth Night and Fathers and Sons (RADA).

Theatre credits include: 46 Beacon (Trafalgar); Accolade (St James Theatre); Nell Gwynn (Apollo Theatre/Shakespeare's Globe); Wolf Hall/Bring Up The Bodies (Royal Shakespeare Company); I Heart Peterborough (Soho Theatre); Joe/Boy (The Last Refuge); A Clockwork Orange (Citizens Theatre Glasgow); Troilus & Cressida and Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare's Globe); SH*TM*X (Trafalgar Studios); The Police (The White Bear); Ted Hughes' Tales of Ovid (Traumward Projekt Productions); Romeo & Juliet (King's Lynn Productions).

Film Credits include: A Fantastic Fear of Everything (Universal); Donkey Punch (Warp X); Red Tails (Lucas Film) and The Rise of the Footsoldier (Carnaby International).

TV credits include: Britannia (Amazon Studios); Tennison (ITV); Silk (BBC 1); Tea Boys (Tiger Aspect); Midsomer Murders (ITV/ Bentley Productions); Misfits (E4/ Quite Funny Films); Sirens (Channel 4); Consuming Passions, Holby City, Mr Wroe's Virgins and Daphne (BBC); The Bill (ITV/ Talkback Thames); The Fixer (Kudos) and Eastenders (ITV).

Radio Credits include: The Russian Gambler (Radio 4)

Patrick Robinson

Theatre credits include: The Rover, King Lear, King John, Richard III, Henry VI-Part 1, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, All God's Children Got Wings, The Great White Hope, They Shoot Horses Don't They?, Class Enemy, Macbeth, Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet (Royal Shakespeare Company); Shawshank Redemption (UK Tour); WAITING FOR GODOT (West Yorkshire Playhouse); WARHORSE (New London Theatre); Rough Crossing (Headlong Theatre); Gem Of The Ocean (Tricycle Theatre); Macbeth (Out Of Joint); Festen (Almeida and Lyric Theatre); Guantanamo Bay (Tricycle); Peace Maker (Other Place); The Merchant of Venice (Chichester Festival Theatre); Mappa Mundi (National Theatre); Dangerous Corner (Garrick Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (National Tour); The Country Wife (National Tour); Macbeth (Howarth Festival); Wuthering Heights (Chester Gateway); Hiawatha (Crucible, Sheffield).

Television credits include: Him, Mount Pleasant, Casualty, The Bill, Tracy Beaker, Shane, Shadow Play, Headless, A Many Splintered Thing, Pig Heart Boy, Who Dares Wins, Daylight Robbery, The Man, Harpur & Ile, Julius Caesar, Casualty, Dodgem, Troublemakers, Total Eclipse, Dream Ticket, Back to the Wild, Windrush, Gala Concert, Two Halves-Many Colours and Blacker Than Black

Film credits include: Belly Of The Beast, The Bee Stung Wasp, Monument (As Director) Driven and Four Days To Zero.

Radio credits include: Final Sacrament, Double Dribble, Losing Paradise, The Castle of Otranto, Cymbeline, One Bright Child, No Man, The Jury, In the News

Bessie Carter

Bessie Carter is the winner of the Spotlight Screen Award 2016.

Theatre Credits include: King Lear (The Old Vic); The Roundabout (Park Theatre); Lulu and The Secret Rapture (Guildhall).

TV credits include: Doc Martin (ITV); Howard's End and Cranford (BBC); Trevold Island (CBBC).

Film credits include: Les Miserables (Universal Pictures).

Edward Harrison

Credits for the Everyman & Playhouse: Sex and the Three Day Week (Playhouse)

Other theatre credits include: Constellations (Singapore Repertory Theatre); All My Sons (Rose Theatre Kingston); Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies (Royal Shakespeare Company/ Winter Garden Theatre/ Broadway); Henry V (Michael Grandage Company / Noel Coward Theatre, West End); Macbeth (The Armory/ New York City); Tomcat (Southwark Playhouse); Taming of the Shrew, Cyrano de Bergerac (US Tour); A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello and Cyrano (Chester Performs); Time and the Conway's and Joking Apart (Nottingham Playhouse); The Rivals (Theatre Royal Haymarket, West End and UK Tour); Henry IV Part One and Part Two (Peter Hall Company/ Theatre Royal Bath), Noises Off!, Norman Conquests and Accidental Death of An Anarchist (Torch Theatre; Dangerous Liaisons and She Stoops to Conquer (Mappa Mundi, UK Tour).

Television: Genius (Fox21/NatGeo); Doctor Who and Doctors (BBC).

Film: Brandoing (Virgin Short Finalist); The Present, Dante, Breathing Room, Oska Bayte

Radio: Dorian Gray, Doctor Who: Nightshade and Vienna: Retribution (Big Finish), A Doll's House, Enemy of the People, Treasure Island and Just One Damned Thing After Another (Audible)

Ryan Pope

Theatre credits include: Streetcar Named Desire and Saturday, Sunday Morning (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); Hangmen (West End/Royal Court); To Kill A Mockingbird (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre/Tour); Watching The Detectives (Library Manchester); Breathing Corpses (Royal Court Theatre); Once Upon a Time in Wigan (Contact Theatre Manchester/National Tour); Parting Shots (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough); The Arbour (Sheffield Crucible); Meat (Theatre Royal Plymouth); The Taming of The Shrew, Bad Weather and The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Royal Shakespeare Company).

Television credits include: Motherland, Casualty, Ashes to Ashes, Ideal, Stepping Up, Holby City, Doctors, Bodyfarm (BBC); The 4 0'Clock Club (CBBC); Victoria, Coronation Street and Sharpes Peril (ITV) and The Midnight Beast (E4).

Film credits include: Peterloo, Looking for Eric and A Field in England (Film4); The Unseen (Goonworks Films); United We Fall (Magnet Films); Velvet Goldmine (Goldwyn Films).

About Ken Ludwig

Ken Ludwig is a two-time Olivier Award-winning playwright whose work is performed throughout the world in more than thirty countries and over twenty languages. He has written twenty-four plays and musicals, with six Broadway productions and seven in London's West End. His Tony-winning play Lend Me A Tenor, was called "one of the classic comedies of the 20th century" by The Washington Post. His other plays and musicals include Crazy For You (5 years on Broadway, Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Musical), Moon Over Buffalo (Broadway and West End), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Broadway), Treasure Island (West End), Twentieth Century (Broadway), Leading Ladies, Shakespeare in Hollywood, The Game's Afoot, The Fox on the Fairway, The Three Musketeers, The Beaux' Stratagem, Baskerville and A Comedy of Tenors. In 2017, his critically acclaimed adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, written at the request of the Agatha Christie Estate, premiered at the McCarter Theatre; and his newest play, Robin Hood!, opened at The Old Globe, both to sold out houses. He has received commissions from the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Old Globe and the Bristol Old Vic, and he is a Sallie B. Goodman Fellow of the McCarter Theatre. His many awards and honors include the Charles MacArthur Award, two Helen Hayes Awards, the SETC Distinguished Career Award, the Edgar Award for Best Mystery and the Edwin Forrest Award for Contributions to the American Theater. His book How To Teach Your Children Shakespeare (Random House) won the Falstaff Award for Best Shakespeare Book of the Year and his essays are published by the Yale Review. He holds degrees from Harvard and Cambridge University. Ken's plays and musicals are produced somewhere in the United States and abroad every night of the year. www.kenludwig.com

Loveday Ingram
Director

Loveday Ingram trained with John Barton at the Royal Shakespeare Company and was previously Associate Director at Chichester Festival Theatre.

Credits include: The Rover and The Merchant of Venice (Royal Shakespeare Company); Julius Caesar (Storyhouse, Chester); My One and Only (Piccadilly Theatre/Chichester Festival Theatre); The Blue Room, Dead Funny, Three Sisters, Pal Joey and Insignificance (Chichester Festival Theatre); When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Bedroom Farce (Aldwych Theatre); Macbeth (Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury); Richard III (Nottingham Playhouse); These Shining Lives (Park Theatre); Rockabye (Beckett Centenary Festival/Gate Theatre Dublin/Barbican); Boston Marriage and Hysteria (Project Theatre Dublin); Outlying Islands and Lettice and Lovage (Bath Theatre Royal) and The Messiah (National Theatre of Brent/Bush Theatre).

Opera credits include: All About Love (Linbury Studio); Rape of Lucrece (Battersea Arts Centre) and Vanessa (Lyric Hammersmith).

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