I want your show to be good.

I think that gets lost in the hurt and high dudgeon that follows a negative review. In the days leading up to a performance, I fret over every bad omen. I hate writing pans. I don't want to be the bearer of bad tidings. So when I walk into a theater on final dress night and smell panic, my heart sinks. Disney's Imagineers consider a waiting line part of their attraction, and you should, too.  Preshow is show. Despite three good actors and a director I respect, signs augured trouble as the metaphorical curtain rose on Theater Artists Olympia's co-production (with the Outfit Theatre Project) of The Hound of the Baskervilles in TAO's quirky new digs, the Eagles Ballroom basement.

I relaxed within seconds, I'm happy to report, because Baskervilles is instantly funny and stays that way. It owes as much to Monty Python's Flying Circus as it does to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If you've seen Shakespeare Abridged or, for that matter, Airplane, you have a feel for its tone: linear narrative cohesion has been sacrificed gleefully at the altar of one goofy joke after another. It even follows the Shakespeare Abridged model to the extent of restaging previous scenes in fast-forward, probably in the hope that this will help us make sense of the plot. It almost does.

To read Christian Carvajal's full review, click here.

[Eagles Ballroom basement, The Hound of the Baskervilles, through Nov. 6, 8 p.m. Fri-Sat, 2 p.m. Sun, $12, 805 N. Fourth Ave., Olympia, 360.790.1138]