The next interview in our Stagey Chat series is with Nick Lane. Nick is the writer and director of The Hunt for Moriarty, which starts touring the UK from September this year.

Would you mind introducing yourself to our readers and telling us how you first got into the theatre industry?

My name’s Nick Lane. I am the writer and director of The Hunt for Moriarty which is a Blackeyed Theatre production touring from September this year.

I got into the theatre industry first as an actor. I left school after the sixth form – I'd already done some acting as a kid. My mum, who had worked for the coal board for the early part of my life and did Amateur Dramatics as a hobby, was spotted by a local theatre company in Doncaster (DAC), and asked to do a one-woman show at the Edinburgh Festival in 1979, thereby getting her Equity card up in Edinburgh and becoming an actor full time. And one day – well, night, actually – when I was about eleven, she introduced me to her agent at an end-of-shoot party for a BBC “Play for Today.” The agent was looking to take on some kids, and soon after that I got an audition for – and managed to get – a part on what was then called “Emmerdale Farm”.

I did little bits and bobs on telly while I was still at school, but mostly I did theatre work. After I left school I carried on working, and then in the mid-nineties, I was in a car accident while on a day off from filming something for the BBC. The car accident exacerbated a pre-existing back condition that I have. It’s called Ankylosing Spondylitis and essentially, it’s the fusing of the spine. I’d been diagnosed with it in the early nineties and initially it wasn’t hugely noticeable, but the car accident made the condition far, far worse and my movement much more restrictive.

After the accident I knew there was going to be a sort of, if you like, sell-by date on my acting career. Fortunately, at that time I'd been working a lot for Hull Truck Theatre Company and for John Godber, the then Artistic Director of the company, and the man that changed my life. We'd had a number of conversations, he and I, about how I'd always enjoyed writing, how I’d written some stuff just for myself really, and he very generously gave me the opportunity to write and direct an adaptation of Frankenstein when I was twenty-nine.

First productions aren't always great, but John helped guide me through that, and to give me another crack, and here we are now and I'm nearly fifty-five and I'm still writing and directing and still loving it. And that is my introduction to the theatre industry.

Your show, Blackeyed Theatre's Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty, is starting its UK tour from September, and running until May 2026. Can you tell us about the story?

I can tell you about what the story is and how it came about, but I don't really want to tell you the story itself because that's part of the joy of coming up with a title like The Hunt for Moriarty, which is kind of evocative and isn't part of the Conan Doyle canon of Holmes stories, so no-one (outside of the people working on the show) knows anything about it yet.

What I can tell you that it is based around a handful of the short stories – or “Adventures,” as Conan Doyle referred to them. What I did in order to make the play was to read all of the canon and find stories that had thematic links. Once I had those, I created an overarching plot that would effectively join up Doyle’s adventures and started to draw the whole thing together.

We reference six or seven of the Holmes stories within the course of the play – though not in a way that will alienate or lessen the experience of those that do not know the books. Predominantly there are three… arguably four of those six or seven used significantly within the narrative, with, as I say, this other narrative, and lots of themes with contemporary echoes, connecting it all.

Prior to this adaptation, as you’ll know, Blackeyed Theatre had commissioned me to adapt The Sign of Four, which is the second of Conan Doyle's for full length Holmes mysteries, and then The Valley of Fear, which is the fourth and final one. The other two full-length novels are A Study in Scarlet and The Hound of the Baskervilles, both of which have been adapted for stage many times before (especially the latter), but both Adrian (McDougall, Artistic Director, Blackeyed Theatre) and I felt that Doyle’s shorter Holmes stories haven’t been explored as much on stage – indeed, outside of Conan Doyle's readership some of these tales might not be known at all. It was fun to look at these tales, then, especially when wanting to create something that could explore Holmes’ relationship, or rivalry, with the character most perceive as being his nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

So, that is the story of the story if you like, but the story itself, I'm going to keep to myself. I'm sorry.

Blackeyed Theatre are known for putting their own spin on much-loved classics. What inspired you to come back to the world of Sherlock Holmes?

Oh well, that's easy. Conan Doyle is a genius. I love his writing. Outside of his dedicated fanbase I don’t think he's acknowledged enough for his skill, or his craft as a writer. I’d say people know Holmes’ adventures are rattling great yarns, but outside of the mechanics of his plots he's a very witty, clever writer. I think with Holmes and Watson you have two absolutely iconic characters. Great foils. Great friends – a genius and a biographer, both brave and decent, and being able to come back to that world is an inspiration itself. Getting to play with those characters and create something fresh. 

I suppose that feeds into the idea of putting a spin on classics, bringing a fresh set of eyes to any particular text. With crime fiction, the difficulty on stage is the crime’s already happened, so a lot of what you see can end up being just reported action. And so, the spin is in how to keep that dramatically interesting. I think we've found ways to do that – combining detection and action in a way that will hopefully make the audience go, wow. And that's what you want. So, the desire to do that is a further inspiration, for me.

Is there a certain amount of pressure that comes alongside adapting such iconic classics, such as Sherlock Holmes, and most recently before that, Dracula?

Oh, of course. I mean it's not an unpleasant pressure, but when you have characters and stories that are so iconic, so fixed in the public imagination, that comes with its own set of expectations. It was as true of something like Dracula as it is with Holmes and Watson, I think. With the latter pair you’re looking to bring their relationship, that friendship and those characters to life, as well as trying to capture how the pair of them solve the mysteries, or how Holmes comes to his conclusions.

But yes, we all have our opinions as to how those two friends relate to one another and how they relate to the world around them, and what you want to try and do is honour the original creators, while finding your truth of those relationships and those characters.

And by doing that what you hope is that those creators, whether it be Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker or whoever, would recognise the characters they gave to the world.

How important is it to you to stay authentic to the original by Arthur Conan Doyle? And is this something you had in the forefront of your mind?

Oh, you have to keep it in your mind, I think. With the previous two Sherlock Holmes adaptations, because they were singular narratives you try and stay as close to the themes and the plot of those books… yes, you can play around with structure a little, but you want to represent those stories in a way that the authors themselves might have envisaged.

As I said earlier, crime fiction can be problematic on stage because it can end up being a load of very similar scenes of clue-finding and then people being interviewed, which works for a reader but on stage can come across as quite arid, and that’s absolutely not what Conan Doyle would want for his readers or his characters!

My blog is called Stage to Page. If you could turn any book, from page to stage, what would it be and why?

Wow. Okay. Any book at all? Um I you know, again with my uh, dramaturge’s head, or director's head, on I know there are certain things that are not unachievable, but would be remarkably ambitious in terms of budget and casting, you know. I'm a big, Stephen King fan. I love The Stand. I’d love to see a version of The Dead Zone on stage, but I think they might be for other people to adapt. Ones of books that I would love to have a crack at is Therese Raquin, the Emil Zola uh book. It’s utterly fantastic and I reckon it would make a great three-hander. Quite spooky and doom-laden. Outside of that, one of my favourite books in my late teens was Riddley Walker, the Russell Hoban novel, which is set in a kind of post-apocalyptic future, is written in a language that's never been spoken and I wouldn’t have the first clue how to go about doing it, but I’d love to see it on stage.

There are bound to be others, but I’m going to stick with Therese Raquin. That would be fun.

And finally, why should people book tickets to see Blackeyed Theatre's Sherlock Holmes: The Hunt for Moriarty?

Well, I think people are going to find something that they’ll enjoy. If they’re Holmes fans who’ve read the stories, then they might well recognise certain stories and situations from the books, and that might be fun for them to explore. If they know the character from films, then hopefully it’ll be fun for them to see the way our Holmes might differ to, say, Benedict Cumberbatch, or Robert Downey, jr., Jonny Lee Miller or even Jeremy Brett for those who remember that series. But in the end, for anyone that fancies coming, from those new to Sherlock Holmes right through to the people who know the books inside and out and know that every adaptation inside and out, what you want to do for every single audience, member is give them a good time.

We're currently a few days away from starting rehearsals but we've got a great cast and a great team behind it. And I'm hopeful that we’re going to create a rattling, good tale and that's what I want. I think people should book tickets to see the show because they're going to be entertained and they're going to go home and tell their friends, “Go and see that before it leaves town.” You couldn’t ask for any more than that, I think.

You can book tickets to see The Hunt for Moriarty, here.