WATERLOGG PRODUCTIONS: Sherlock Holmes' Creepy Christmas on "The Joe Bev Experience, Saturday, December 15

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Sherlock Holmes' Creepy Christmas on "The Joe Bev Experience, Saturday, December 15 - 4:30 pm ET / 1:30 pm PT, on CRAGG

"Sherlock Holmes' Creepy Christmas"
will be heard on the 19th edition
of The Joe Bev Experience
airing Saturday, December 15
at 4:30 pm ET / 1:30 pm on
http://www.cultradioagogo.com, right after Joe Bev's Comedy-O-Rama Hour and Jazz-O-Rama Hour (part of "The Joe Bev 3-Hour Block" starting 2:30 pm ET).

In this sound rich, inventive and humorous take on Sherlock Holmes, Holmes, Watson and Watson's wife, Mary Morstan, visit Scotland and the castle of Lord Tavis Mac Millian, only to become entangled in the curse of the Loch Alsh monster and the ghost of Macbeth.

The radio theater was written, produced, and directed by Joe Bevilacqua.

The cast: Sherlock Holmes: Vernon Morris; Dr. John H. Watson, MD: Henry J. Quinn; Mary Morstan: Gwendolyn Lewis; Tavis Mac Millian: B.H. Barry; the three witches: Jan Meredith, Gwendolyn Lewis; Joe Bevilacqua; Scotty Mac Melillo: Vernon Morris.

Also on the hour, "December 17" by Jeff Ward. In this radio play, when one day doesn't follow the next, Mike realizes he's not traveling through time anymore — time is traveling through him.

The weekly radio hour is an anthology series representing the depth and breath of Bev's 40-plus year career in audio storytelling, from documentary to radio drama, and new and classic installments of Bev's older radio show Cartoon Carnival (still heard on many stations).

The History of The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes

I was inspired to create this radio series, first from reading Conan Doyle's stories. I tried to fill the scripts with sly references to the original "Canon," as it s called. Even the Baker Street Irregulars and other Holmesian groups and scholars have enjoyed this about my series.

My second inspiration, was Daws Butler, the great voice actor and my mentor. In 1976, Daws wrote a script called "Sherlock Holmes in Trouble," which portrayed Holmes as a booby and Watson as a selfish intellectual using Holmes.

It led to several other scripts some if which were produced, including "This Here is Your Life, Sherlock Holmes," written and performed by Daws and his acting workshop. The third inspiration came when I met a group of actors I met in the summer of 1982. I was acting in an Off-Broadway play, "Spider's Web" by Lucille Fletcher, author of the great radio play. "Sorry, Wrong Number."

Daws Butler
and Joe Bevilacqua

I was the mysterious Butler (I didn't do it.) and the cast was rounded out by Brit Vernon Morris, and an American cast of wonderful actors I grew to love over the months we performed for the Meat & Potatoes Company, with no air condition! All the characters in "Spider's Web" had their Holmesian counterparts.

I quickly decided to write a ten-part radio drama series, built around the first Daws Butler script, which eventually served as episode three in the plot arc of my series, starring this cast. The Misadentures of Sherlock Holmes premiered in October 1983 on WBAI and ran through 1985. By the time, we were finished, we had ten great, inspired half-hours. They have since played on public radio stations across the United States, in Canada, England, Australia and New Zealand.

The Misadventures
of Sherlock Holmes:
The Best of the Comedy-O-Rama Hour,
Season One

By Joe Bevilacqua, Daws Butler, Robert J. Cirasa
Voiced by Vernon Morris, Henry J. Quinn, Jan Meredith , Ed Hyland, Terry Price, Gwendolyn Lewis, B. H. Barry

Length: 4 hours

& 56 min.

Mostly, recently, they aired on XM Radio, since 2003. Vernon Morris was an amazing Holmes, playing him more like Stan Laurel than Basil Rathbone. Henry J. Quinn, though not English, played his Watson as a pompous, lying egotist, the opposite of the Nigel Bruce booby interpretation of the character from the 1940s movies. Henry was a retired FBI agent, who took up acting late and was often seen in sketches on David Letterman. The late Jan Meredith of North Carolina was the nutty but jovial Mrs. Hudson, played as an Irish woman. English actress Gwendolyn Lewis played Holmes's secret love, Irene Adler, as a sexy tone-deaf tart who dreamed of being an opera singer.

Joe Bevilacqua (Joe Bev) is a veteran radio theater producer and voice actor. A protege of Daws Butler, he also works on stage and is the winner of the 2012 New York TANYS Award for Excellence in Acting. He has performed at the Improv, Caroline's on Broadway, Catch a Rising Star, the Comic Strip, opened for Uncle Floyd, worked with Al Franken, Shelley Berman, Louis Black and Rick Overton. Joe has also MC'd shows featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Mahr and Gilbert Gottfried. He has been regularly heard on National Public Radio and Sirius-XM Radio and has produced hundreds of hours of audiobooks.