Ken Ludwig's Baskerville from Dramatic Productions sees Sherlock Holmes return

Ken Ludwig's plays have been popular in Canberra in recent years.

Canberra Repertory Society has produced the American playwright's comedies Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo and Fox on the Fairway.

Now Dramatic Productions is getting into the act with another Ludwig play, Baskerville - A Sherlock Holmes Mystery, first produced in 2015.

As the title suggests, Baskerville is based on the 1902 novel The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

In the story, a representative of the Baskerville family comes to London to present the great detective Sherlock Holmes with an intriguing - and eerie - problem.

The Baskervilles appear to be afflicted by a curse. Legend has it that for hundreds of years, a demonic, supernatural hound has been killing the male heirs to Baskerville Hall on the Devonshire moors.

In any case, they've been dying mysteriously, one by one.

After Sir Charles Baskerville becomes the latest victim, there are fears for the next in line, Sir Henry Baskerville, who has arrived from Canada to claim the estate. Holmes sends his faithful assistant, Dr John Watson, with Sir Henry to investigate.

Ludwig calls The Hound of the Baskervilles - the third of four Sherlock Holmes novels by Conan Doyle - "one of the two great adventures stories of all time".

The other, he says, is Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island which, not surprisingly, he has also adapted for the stage.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is, in Ludwig's words, "a big, sprawling novel".

In cutting it down and bringing it to the stage, he was inspired by Patrick Barlow's theatrical adaptation of The 39 Steps.

Barlow's comedic version of the John Buchan story has one actor as the hero, Richard Hannay, and three others playing dozens of other roles.

Ludwig decided to adopt a similar approach, using a cast of five.

One actor plays Sherlock Holmes (in this production, Brian Kavanagh) another Dr Watson (Adam Salter) and the other three play "40 or so parts".

A lot of the comedy arises from this melange of characters, necessitating quick changes and versatile performers, though Ludwig says he has presented the mystery elements of the story straight.

Although he did cut a couple of minor characters and began the story a little differently to Conan Doyle, Ludwig says his adaptation is "very faithful."

He describes the story as being "in the traditional 'cosy' style" of British mystery, like the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey, where the mystery gets solved and order is restored.

Ludwig says the comedies he writes are in the tradition of the classical comedy such as George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer (1706) and Arthur Wing Pinero's Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898).

He was born in Pennsylvania and says he talked him out of starting as a writer.

"My parents wanted me to make a living...They said I should find something I can make money at first."

He became an international lawyer in Washington, DC but got up every morning at 4am and wrote for an hour - 4.30am to 5.30am - before work.

He eventually started getting some attention and having his plays performed by small companies.

It wasn't until his fourth play that things really took off. At a social gathering in New York, Ludwig was talking to an English director who expressed an interest in reading his work.

He gave the man a copy of Lend Me a Tenor.

"He called me back a couple of days later and said, 'I really like this, I want to direct it. I'll show it to a producer friend of mine.'''

The "producer friend" turned out to be Andrew Lloyd Webber, who produced Lend Me a Tenor in London in 1986 and on Broadway in 1989.

It became an international hit and launched his career.

But Ludwig, despite his many credits, does not rest on his laurels.

His advice to anyone wanting to be a writer is to read a lot, write from the heart, and work hard.

"I write every single day of my life for 10 hours a day."