Writing and Melbourne and vampires, oh my.

Lawrence Leung has built his considerable reputation on two key ingredients: a kind of nerdy adorableness and a passion for investigation that isn’t half as guileless as it looks.

From his early shows like Sucker, in which he spun a conman’s yarn with astonishing believability, through to his TV series Unbelievable, Leung has combined personable comedy with the search for underlying truths – often while toying with perceptions of reality. It makes his productions hugely enjoyable with a delightful frisson of uncertainty.

Of course, having previously admitted on these pages how fond I am of Sherlock Holmes, Leung’s latest show – Lawrence Leung’s Part Time Detective Agency – was always going to be on my list of Shows To See at the 2013 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Leung’s fast-paced show is full of energy and geeky charm. He opens by demonstrating the expertise at his disposal for running a (part time) detective agency, from his earliest forays into uncovering great conspiracies when he was at primary school through to offering observations and plausible deductions on the reasons for differences in kissing in different countries.

A huge key to the success of this show is his live demonstration of his deductive abilities, when he chooses two members of the audience and uses a series of simple questions and his acute knowledge of body language to determine which of them is lying. The demonstration means that the whole evening is predicated on Leung’s authentic credentials as a detective. Like Sherlock Holmes himself, Lawrence Leung, the part time detective, does not rely on gadgets and scientific mumbo jumbo – he relies on brilliant mental work and the demonstrable accuracy of close observation.

Leung’s skill and knowledge are provably real, and convinced of this, the audience eagerly joins in with his investigation of an old mystery – the true culprit behind a prank perpetrated on him at one memorable birthday party.

There are plenty of Sherlockian references, as well as other nods to geek culture while keeping it inclusive and friendly. You can’t help but like him, and to willingly join him in trying to solve this most mysterious of puzzles.

I won’t go into details – spoilers, sweetie – but I can say that Leung is not merely likeable, not merely adorkable – he is smart and genuinely clever. He is also (and being a comedy festival this is the clincher) very, very funny.

See Lawrence Leung’s Part Time Detective Agency at The Swiss Club, 89 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, during the comedy festival until 21 April 2013. ($24.50 to $29.50) Get your tickets online.

(The video on the booking site showing Leung inviting BBC’s Sherlock Holmes to the festival is a treat in itself!)

Other Holmesian links

• Read about the things I’ve learned from Sherlock Holmes.
• Read a GaryView of the Granada series episode The Sussex Vampire

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.

I have a confession to make. When I was a tween, before I discovered fantasy and SF, I had a passion for horse stories. I loved animal stories in general, but the horse stories had me every single time.

My Friend Flicka, The Palamino Horse, Black Beauty, National Velvet, pretty much everything by Margeurite Henry, not to mention the Australian series, The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell and Mary Elwyn Patchett’s numerous series including The Brumby and Tam the Untamed. Some of my first fantasy books were reading about unicorns and winged horses, and of course The Horse and His Boy from the Narnia series.

Yep, I had it bad. If only my parents had given me an actual pony. It could totally have lived in my room with me.

Now I think about it, moving from horse stories to dragon stories, a la Pern, was a natural progression, and from there I moved on to all kinds of SF, fantasy, crime and horror. Nevertheless, I retain a soft spot for well told animal stories.

Enter, stage left, War Horse. I saw the film (I must confess partly because the recent Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, was in it and I wanted to see him in something else) and liked it well enough.

The prospect of a stage version, though, had me intrigued and excited. The puppetry and stagecraft of the stage version of The Lion King had impressed me and I wanted to see how those techniques would apply to concepts as large as life-sized horses and a whole world war on the stage.

I didn’t realise that War Horse originated as a book until after the show, but as I sat there watching the story unfold, I thought that it must have been from that genre. I recognised the traditional patterns of all of those books I’d read in my childhood. Particularly resonant was the typical tale of a young person (a boy, as is so often the case in these books, Albert in this case) and his intense, pure love for his horse (Joey). This pattern seemed at odds, though, with the much more violent, adult aspects of the story, with the horrors of war very clearly shown, including the deliberate shootings of both humans and animals.

It’s a juxtaposition that is a little jarring, and I think my 10-year-old self would have been deeply distressed by this production. Still, at 13 I might have loved it, though probably I’d have cried. Hell, I’m a full grown adult now and I still got very emotional, particularly at the fates of the animals.

The puppetry in War Horse is absolutely brilliant. The horse constructs are complex and move with surprising naturalism, from the distinctive gait of a colt to the heaving of a chest, post-gallop, and the flicking of an equine tail.

Each horse has three operators, and they don’t just move the limbs, head, tail and torso. They make sounds and are hugely physically expressive. They are literally and figuratively the animating spirit of the horses. When one of the animals dies and the puppeteers slowly withdraw, stand at attention and then, as one, leave the stage, I had tears in my eyes. I was watching the spirit leave that horse, and it was sad.

Anthropomorphism provokes a strong emotional response in me, and I found myself much more involved in the horses – and even the hilarious goose at the farm who likes to, well, goose everyone – than the human cast. In the first act I sometimes felt the puppet animals were more emotionally complex and realistic than some of the people.

The second half addresses this lack, with Albert suffering through so much in his search for Joey on the battlefields of France and losing his faith. He finally gains the emotional texture to lift the character out of the simple, broad strokes of archetype to a person as real as Joey the horse has become.

Oddly, having seen the film took some of the excitement out of the play for a while, as I thought I knew what was coming next. However, the stage show plot differs in some respects to the film, which was a boon when I suddenly realised in one section that I didn’t know what happened to these people. The suspense returned. I knew how the big picture would end, but not the lives of the other characters.

On the whole, War Horse is an excellent production. I haven’t spent any time here talking about the wonderful exeuction of the lighting, backdrop design, the battle sequences, the vocal soundscapes with the beautiful singing, the general sound design, and the costuming. It’s a handsome production, beautifully performed, even though the humans are less complex than they could be. The puppets of course are extraordinary, with their wonderful puppeteers, transcending their shapes of wood and wire, and that’s a bit of theatre magic totally worth the price of entry.

War Horse is on at the Arts Centre, Melbourne until 10 March 2013, tickets from $79.90 for B Reserve. See more at the Arts Centre site.

Narrelle M Harris is a Melbourne-based writer. Find out more about her books, smartphone apps, public speaking and other activities at www.narrellemharris.com.