Our winning entry is Laurie Fraser Manifold, whose entry combined the verbal and the visual. Warren Randall was our first runner-up, and honorable mentions went to Don Izban and Sandy Kozinn. We’re pleased to offer these four entries for your enjoyment.

GOOD NIGHT, IRENE—BOHEMIAN SCANDALS

Laurie Fraser Manifold

The faux Hirschfield illustrates the new Broadway musical “Good Night, Irene—Bohemian Scandals,” starring our own Elyse Locurto as Irene Adler, Paul Singleton as Sherlock Holmes, and Kevin Spacey as the King of Bohemia. Some of the hummable hit songs are: “The Incorrigible Mary Jane,” “(I Am Lost without) my Boswell,” “I Don’t Give a Damn for Count Von Kramm,” and “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire.”

A BLAZING DAY AT THE RACES

Warren Randall

“A Blazing Day at the Races” is the Marx Brothers’ follow-up to their incomparable “A Night at the Adler’s.” Groucho, as Sherlock Z. Holmes, a con(sulting) man, passes himself off as a keen finder of lost horses. He has been summoned by wealthy horse lover, Col. Betsy Ross (RET – WAF) (Margaret Dumont) to find her Clydesdale, Silver Blaze, that went missing after an all-nighter at the local pub. Holmes, after successfully finding the horse that stands 17 steps at the shoulder, disguises him as a Shetland filly and secretly puts him into the traces at the races. Silver Blaze easily wins the brewery wagon Drag Race. The performance ends with the grand ball featuring “The Dynamics of a Chandelier Waltz.”

Other memorable parts of the score include the toe-tapping love duet “There’s a Kernel in my Colonel,” sung as soliloquies in Acts 1 and 2 by Holmes and Ross, while Chico brings a tear to the eye with Dr. Watson’s plaint, “I Missed My Ex in Exeter.” In a brilliant bit of barroom buffoonery, Ross mangles Harpo, as the Dog, signing “I Did Nothing in the Nighttime,” and has the entire audience silently cheering as it files out to the bar.

Abe Slaney’s male chorus line from Chicago is a bit stiff, but the Galop that ends the third act is excellent, given what he has to work with. It will be a long time before we see a show like this again.

WITH APOLOGIES TO ROGERS AND HART

Donald B. Izban

In 1940, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote one of their brightest musicals, Pal Joey. The show starred such luminaries as Gene Kelly, June Havoc, and Van Johnson; it was produced and directed by the talented George Abbott; and one of its featured songs was “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”

Pal Joey is about a so-so Chicago hoofer who tries and fails in attempting to be a top dancer and nightclub owner; he also is a “flop” at love. It’s an interesting yarn, but…

Sherlockians could create a better play—produced by Maribeau Briggs, titled Pal Johnny (acronym: PEEJAY, to save in the contest word count) and based on all of the “Sacred Writings.” It would be a story of a struggling doctor (John H. Watson), trying to make a living in medicine while foolishly palling around almost full-time with a nameless (for now) companion who fancies himself to be a “consulting detective.” In PEEJAY, Baskerville Bash alumni are cast in these roles:

Allan Devitt—Watson

Chuck Kovacic—the “consulting detective”

Elyse Locurto—Mrs. Hudson

Next, the story line is somewhat rewritten to allow for an ill-fated dalliance between Watson and Hudson (surely a possible, if not probable, Canonical romance).

For the finale, as the curtain descends, Ms. Locurto rhapsodically paraphrases and parodizes (sic) Hart’s lyrics to”Bewitched” with:

Wise at last,

My eyes at last

Are cutting down John

To his size at last.

Realistic, ballistic, and sadistic am I.

Positively socko!

CARBUNCLE BLUES

Sandy Kozinn

Shadow Pantomime: Scene of Baker being accosted and dropping goose

Now sit yourself down, Watson, Let's eat a woodcock hen.