Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B review: mysterious case of the joke-cracking Sherlock

Shouldn’t that be Flat 2b? Then again, there are bigger problems in this gender-switched reworking of Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of sleuthing than a mere Americanism tossed into Victorian-era Baker Street.

These detective adventures take place in post-pandemic London. Joan Watson (Simona Brown), who tells us she is “not” a doctor, is an American on a grown-up gap year of sorts. An advert for a flatshare brings her to the apartment of Sherlock Holmes (Lucy Farrett), who emphatically tells us she is not called Shirley. Despite Watson’s reluctance to be there, and her suspicion of Holmes, they set about solving cases together.

Under the direction of Sean Turner, it might be a satire or outright parody with shades of The Play That Goes Wrong (which Turner has directed). It gives off improv sketch vibes with ropey comic timing and pallid, overfamiliar jokes.

The title’s “Ms” hints at covert lesbianism in an era when it could only be insinuated. Are Joan and Sherlock a same-sex blueprint for the likes of Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas? No such luck. American playwright Kate Hamill is on to a good idea but does not do nearly enough with it. Holmes might be a lesbian, Watson might swing both ways, but whatever frisson there is between the duo and the panoply of accompanying characters (all adeptly played by Tendai Humphrey Sitima and Alice Lucy) gives way to relentlessly plotty larks.

Too elementary … (from left) Alice Lucy, Simona Brown, Lucy Farrett and Tendai Humphrey Sitima in Ms Holmes and Ms Watson – Apt 2B. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

The underlying purpose behind Hamill’s central gender switch remains opaque because the play sticks so faithfully to Doyle’s purpose of solving one crime to the next. It is too elementary, in a sense, and neither as funny as you want it to be nor as serious. Instead it is jejune, reliant on types (including lazy “Irish” jokes) and with little probing beneath the surface of plot or character.

Holmes rubs Watson up the wrong way with her eccentricities, drug-taking and insistence on turning everything (including Watson’s past) into a game of logical deduction. You can see Watson’s point. Holmes is a high-pitched character, delivering little more than cliches. In the end, you wish for less capering, more drama.

• At Arcola theatre, London, until 20 December