My Favourite Television Detectives:
Sherlock Holmes
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Welcome to the Sherlock Holmes page! Click on the links below to take you to different
parts of this page or simply scroll down the page!
Introduction:
The stories of Sherlock Holmes have been dramatised many times. This page will
focus mainly on the Granada Television adaptation in the 1980s and 1990s. The idea
of re-creating the Sherlock Holmes adventures for a modern day audience came from a
producer called Michael Cox, and the series successfully ran from 1984 until 1994.
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Sherlock Holmes:
Jeremy Brett was asked to play the formidable character of Holmes by Michael Cox
in 1981. At first Brett was interested in the idea, but understandably didn't want to commit
himself to the new project until it was formalised. In fact it was not until 1983 that first
episode went into production, mainly due to copyright problems.
The first episode that viewers saw was "A Scandal In Bohemia" where Brett brought to life
Sherlock Holmes for many people and he soon became known as "the Sherlock Holmes".
Brett's sharp features mirrored Sidney Paget's original drawings of Holmes which may be one
reason why he became so popular as Holmes.
It is noted in several books about
the series that Brett frequently argued with the script writing team about changes from the
original texts. This is shown by the quotation below from "A Study in Celluloid" written by
the producer, Michael Cox:
The scripts had been written during that long legal lay-off, but he had his copy of the original
stories, annotated and underlined...Where John Hawkesworth and I had changed or expanded Conan
Doyle's text, he fought for absoloute fidelity-sometimes we won, sometimes he did; nothing was
taken for granted." (COX, M. 1999)
Many of the episodes are quite close to the original stories and I believe that Brett is in
some part responsible for this closeness of the script to the stories.
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Dr.Watson:
The actor who played Dr Watson in the Adventures series was David Burke. He was chosen
by Michael Cox to play the part and even though he would not be playing the lead role,
he accepted the part.
Burke played a different kind of Watson to what had sometimes been shown before.
He portrayed him as intelligent, yet not as clever as Holmes, but certainly not as a fool,
which has been used to describe earlier Dr.Watsons'.
In the next three series, the Return, the Casebook and the Memoirs, Burke was replaced by
Edward Hardwicke. Burke had decided not to continue with the role as he missed his family,
and Burke suggested that Granada ask Edward Hardwicke to fill the role. Hardwicke accepted and
another Dr. Watson was introduced in the "The Empty House".
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Other Characters:
Three of the most well known characters from the stories (apart from the two central ones)
are Mrs Hudson, Mycroft Holmes and Moriarty.
- Mrs Hudson is the landlady of 221b Baker Street and she was
played by Rosalie Williams.The character does not play a large part in the episodes, but Granada
did change the stories slightly in some episodes in order to give the character a greater role in
the series.
| Mycroft was played by Charles Gray in the Granada series and appeared in four
episodes. The last two episodes were not actually true to the original text. The Granada team had
to ask Gray to appear as Mycroft in "The Mazarin Stone" as Brett was ill and was not available
for filming. In "The Golden Pince-nez" the character of Mycroft, was used again, this time to
replace the character of Dr.Watson, as Hardwicke was involved in another production and so was
unavailable.
|
Moriarty played by Eric Porter, is known as the "Napoleon of crime"(Granada Television) in the stories and is directly involved in two episodes. Firstly,
we see a glimpse of Moriarty at the conclusion of "The Red-Headed League" and secondly we see a
much more dramatic view of Moriarty in "The Final Problem". In this episode, Moriarty is chasing
Holmes through the depths of Switzerland with the intention of murder. The episode made by Granada
is quite different to the original story, as there is actually a case for Holmes to solve involving
the disappearance of the Mona Lisa painting, which was not in the original story.
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Favourite Episodes:
"The Solitary Cyclist"
This is an episode from the Adventures series. It is a good story and the episode has some
wonderful scenes. One of them is when Watson comes back from Farnham where
he was sent by Holmes to start investigating a case about a young woman who is being followed by a
man on a cyclist. Watson is very pleased with his trip as he has found out the name of the man who
lives at the house on the side of the road where the young woman is being followed. However, Holmes
does not feel that Watson has made real use of his trip, and tells him that he should have visited
the local pub in order to find out the most details. After telling Watson this fact, Watson asks
"Did I really do remarkably badly?".
Holmes pauses and then simply replies:
"Yes." (Granada Television)
and turns away from Watson.
This is actually one of the sound files which is listed below in the Sound Files section. Another
memorable part of the episode includes the fight scene in the pub, which Holmes is involved in.
Brett looks almost like a ballet dancer as he moves around the floor, which fits into the
unconventional nature of Holmes very well.
"The Musgrave Ritual"
This is from the Return series, and is actually quite different from the original story. In the
Granada episode, Holmes and Watson are seen travelling to a Manor house, where they are staying for
a short holiday. The place where they are staying belongs to an old college colleague,
Reginald Musgrave. Whilst on their holiday, there is a mystery involving the disappearance of the
butler, Brunton and the strange reactions of the housemaid to the butler's name.
A good scene in the episode is when Holmes is trying to figure out the old family riddle called
"The Musgrave Ritual" which has never been solved and seems to have interested the butler before
his disappearance. The detective tells Watson and Musgrave that the "answer lies in trigonometry"
and tells them to fetch all of the fishing rods in the house. Once this is done, the trio proceed
to follow the instructions in the riddle and eventually the riddle leads them to an small underground
cellar where they find the suffocated body of the butler.
Once he is found, and the mystery of the missing butler is solved, the next mystery is whether
Rachel, who it seems helped the butler to retrieve whatever was in the cellar, dropped the lid of
the cellar on purpose or whether she simply could not do anything to help the butler as the lid
was too heavy for her to lift. As the body of Rachel is found later in a nearby lake, it seems we
will never know the true answer...
"The Dying Detective"
This is an episode from the last series before Jeremy Brett's death, The Memoirs. The story
revolves around a man who has died under suspicious circumstances after collapsing at a party at
home with a very rare disease. The man's cousin, Mr Culverton Smith knows all about the
disease which his cousin contracted as he studies foreign diseases. Holmes suspects him of
murder after he inherits all of his cousin's estate under the terms of an old family will. However,
it is impossible to find any evidence and so Holmes, under the disguise of being at death's door
with the rare disease asks Dr. Watson to fetch the suspected murderer, under the pretence that
he may be able to help him. After Smith has confessed that he did murder his cousin, Holmes suddenly
shows that he does not have the disease, and is perfectly well except for a lack of food (and
tobacco!), which he deprived himself of to make it seem as though he was dying. The point where
Holmes reveals himself to Smith is shown when Holmes says:
"Three days without food and water is one thing, but to be without tobacco I have found most
irksome."
(Granada Television)
He then invites the police inspector and his men into the room, who had been watching the house
until they saw the signal of the gas lights being turned up, signalling that they would soon be
needed to take over. Watson is called upon to corroborate Smith's confession and shortly another
case is over!
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Sound Files:
Click on the links below to hear the theme music and some great extracts from the series, borrowed
Sheryl's Sherlock Site.
Theme music (1.26Mb, WAVE file)
"Detection is and ought to be an exact science..." (163kb, WAVE file)
"My mind rebels at stagnation..." (55.9kb, WAVE file)
"What has happened to any brains..." (24.7kb, WAVE file)
"Did I really do remarkably badly?..." (124kb, WAVE file)
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Links:
Please click on the link below to view links to my favourite Sherlock
Holmes websites.
Sherlock Holmes Links
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References
COX, M., 1999, A Study In Celluloid, Cambridge: Rupert Books, p.20
Back to Sherlock Holmes
GRANADA TELEVISION, 1985 The Final Problem Manchester
Back to Other Characters
GRANADA TELEVISION,1983 The Solitary Cyclist Manchester
Back to Favourite Episodes: The Solitary Cyclist
GRANADA TELEVISION,1994 The Dying Detective Manchester
Back to the Favourite Episodes: The Dying Detective
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