Bo Poraj takes on the great detective and Olivier Award nominee Marc Antolin plays his faithful Dr Watson as Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas brings its carol-counting murder mystery to Alexandra Palace Theatre from 24 November. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
A Christmas show that kills off its performers one verse at a time is not the obvious choice for a festive night out, yet that is precisely the joke at the centre of Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas. The comedy whodunnit by Humphrey Ker and David Reed began life at Birmingham Rep last winter and now gives London its first look, at Alexandra Palace Theatre from Tuesday 24 November 2026 to Sunday 17 January 2027, with Phillip Breen directing and songs by Tim Rice and Howard Goodall.
Who is starring in Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas?
Bo Poraj, familiar to television audiences as Mike in the BBC sitcom Miranda, plays Sherlock Holmes, and Marc Antolin is Dr Watson. Poraj called it "one of the funniest scripts I have read in a long time", and said that performing it in the restored Victorian theatre at Alexandra Palace was "the ultimate Christmas treat".
Baker Street is fully staffed: Vivien Parry plays Mrs Hudson and John Ramm is Lestrade, while Mia Jerome appears as Queen Victoria. The rest of the company are Jonnie Broadbent as Arthur Stone, Annabel Brook as Ernie, Wayne Cater as Wotan, Olivia-Faith Kamau as Estella Bottle, Mia Overfield as Clifford, Emily Pithon as Professor Murray, John-Luke Roberts as Fafner and Charlie Russell as Athena Faversham, with Edward Bourne and Margot Jardine as swings. The London company was announced on 29 October.
Spotlight on Marc Antolin
Few performers on the London stage have made the second banana's part pay quite as handsomely as Marc Antolin. The Welsh actor, who trained at Arts Educational Schools, was nominated for an Olivier Award as Seymour in the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre's Little Shop of Horrors in 2018, and earned a second nomination as the anxious accountant Leo Bloom in the Menier Chocolate Factory's revival of The Producers, which he took on to the Garrick Theatre. Earlier credits include Marc Chagall in The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, Romantics Anonymous at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and John Darling in the National Theatre's Peter Pan. Watson asks for much of what Leo Bloom did: the decent, flustered companion who lets the star be brilliant and still collects the laughs that matter. Antolin's own pitch for the evening is "the Sherlock and Watson you know, but wrapped in tinsel, stuffed with jokes, and tied together with phenomenal songs", and on this casting Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas looks well placed to keep that promise.
What is Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas about?
It is Christmas in Victorian London, and actors in the West End have started dying in the middle of their scenes. The deaths are no accident. Called in to investigate, Holmes spots the pattern that everyone else has missed: the murderer is working through The Twelve Days of Christmas, verse by verse, and there are only so many days left before the song, and the killing, reaches its end. With Watson at his side, he has to read the carol's clues before the final curtain comes down for good.
The tone is part detective story and part pantomime, with disguises, red herrings and a finale built to wrong-foot the audience. Ker and Reed, two of the comedy troupe The Penny Dreadfuls, describe it as everything they love about the season packed into one evening, "goodwill to all and a series of gruesome and elaborate killings" included. The Birmingham Rep premiere, which ran from November 2025 to January 2026, was extended beyond its planned closing date.
Who is behind the production?
Phillip Breen directs. The songs were first written for Birmingham by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber; for London, Rice's lyrics are set to music by Howard Goodall. Mark Bailey is the designer, with lighting by Anna Watson and sound by Luke Swaffield for Autograph Sound. Georgina Lamb is choreographer and movement director, Renny Krupinski stages the fights, and the illusions are by Chris Fisher and Dr Will Houstoun. Leo Munby is musical director, Matthew French is orchestra manager and casting is by Helena Palmer.
The producers are Eleanor Lloyd Productions, Eilene Davidson Productions and Heartaches Limited, the team behind the earlier seasonal staging of A Christmas Carol in the same theatre.
When and where can I see it?
Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas runs at Alexandra Palace Theatre, on Alexandra Palace Way in north London, from Tuesday 24 November 2026 to Sunday 17 January 2027, with press night on Tuesday 1 December 2026. The running time is about two and a half hours, including one interval.
The show is recommended for ages 10 and over, and contains moderate language, innuendo and the sound of gunshots. Tickets currently start at £22, and Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Days of Christmas is booking now.
What else should I book if I like it?
- Christmas Carol Goes Wrong at Wyndham's Theatre, from 18 December 2026 to 23 January 2027, puts Dickens through the Goes Wrong treatment: another festive classic played for laughs, with considerably more falling scenery.
- Murder, She Didn't Write at the Duchess Theatre, on selected Monday nights from 16 November 2026 to 19 April 2027, improvises a brand-new whodunnit every night from the audience's suggestions.
- The Mousetrap at St Martin's Theatre is Agatha Christie's long-running murder mystery, and the natural next case for anyone who enjoys naming the culprit before the interval.
- Jack and the Beanstalk at the Hackney Empire, from 21 November to 31 December 2026, is the full-strength traditional pantomime from which Holmes's adventure borrows so much of its spirit.
