Mastering Disguise

‘Accustomed as I was to my friend’s amazing powers in the use of disguises...’
‘A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA’
There were times when Holmes recognised that his best chance of garnering crucial information was to go undercover. This was no hardship for
the Great Detective. As he admitted in The Valley of Fear: ‘Some touch of the artist wells up within me, and calls insistently for a well-staged performance.



’ Over the course of his literary life, Sherlock was disguised as an old seadog, an opium addict (a disguise so successful that much of
the world associates him with that particular drug rather than his cocaine of choice), two men of the cloth, a groom, a bookseller and a plumber.
Perhaps his most successful ruse was when he managed to travel his way around large parts of the world over a period of months or possibly
years in the guise of a Norwegian explorer named Sigerson. The quasi-Scandinavian’s exploits even found their way into the press. So what made
Holmes such a master of disguise? The answer is surely his utter commitment to assuming a role. Watson said as much in ‘A Scandal in
Bohemia’: ‘It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that
he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime.’
Sherlock was a man who embraced method acting long before Brando, De Niro and the like. So how can you ‘become’ a character like
Holmes?
Get the look.
When Holmes took on a disguise, he was preparing to enter the battlefield. To be discovered was to be at serious personal risk. As such,
‘fancy dress’ was never on the agenda and nor should it be for you. In particular, a badly chosen fright wig or an overambitious set of false teeth
are sure to lead to your unmasking. Less can often be more, so avoid overplaying your hand. Avoid passing yourself off as somebody much
older or younger than you actually are, or of a vastly different body shape or even gender.
Work on expressions
Holmes used artificial aids such as make-up to adapt his look (on one occasion he even rubbed his eyes with nightshade to make himself
appear seriously ill) but equally important was his ability to adopt seemingly authentic expressions. Thus, in ‘The Empty House’, we have a
bookseller sporting a ‘snarl of contempt’ so effective that Watson entirely fails to recognise his old friend. Similarly, in ‘The Final Problem’ he
convincingly adopts a protruding lower lip and a habit of mumbling. Here Holmes’s grasp of body language proved a useful skill.
Know your accents
Having the ability to take on a new voice is a brilliant way to mislead. Holmes was presumably masterful in Norwegian and in ‘His Last Bow’
passed himself off as a convincing Irish-American.
Have a back story
Know your alter ego inside out so that if you are challenged, you may maintain it effortlessly. It is difficult to imagine that Holmes could have so
effectively masqueraded as Sigerson unless he had a deep knowledge of the Norwegian’s life story.
Commit to the part
At times you may be forced to go the extra mile to maintain a deception. One of Sherlock’s favourite techniques was to stoop in order to
appear older. ‘It is no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end,’ he was forced to complain. Even more
startlingly, in ‘The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton’, Holmes found himself engaged to a housemaid called Agatha, all in the cause of
maintaining the illusion of his disguise.