Even the hellhound gets laughs in “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery”

Who would have thought Sherlock Holmes would be a ripe topic for satire? Yet playwright Ken Ludwig’s Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, presented by the ShakespeareTheatre of New Jersey in Madison, is just that. Ludwig’s plot is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, but he runs it through a daft combination of English music hall tradition, Victorian melodrama, and The Play That Goes Wrong.

The story is familiar through Conan Doyle’s novel and its film and television adaptations. Holmes and Watson are called in to solve the mystery behind the death of a minor English lord, struck down — or so it would seem — by a demon in the shape of a gigantic hound, part of an old family curse. When the heir, an American from Texas, arrives to claim his inheritance, an anonymous warning indicates the curse is now aimed at him.

The five-person cast, led by Christian Pedersen as Holmes and Brandon Jones as Dr. Watson, perform multiple characters of various ages and both sexes — sometimes at the same time. To credit the rest of the talented cast, they are David Foubert, Janiah-Camile François, and Nicholas Wilder. Artistic Director Brian B. Crowe guides his little troupe skillfully, if at times a little sluggishly, through Ludwig’s lunacy, and the result is an evening of pure silly fun.

There’s no two ways about it: Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery is a ditzy, funny no-brainer of an evening. If this is your cup of Earl Gray tea, I highly recommend seeing Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery!

Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery is presented by the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey at the F.M. Kirby Theatre on the campus of Drew University in Madison through August 2. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to shakespearenj.org.