Sherlock Holmes in other media
Encyclopedia
The stories of Sherlock Holmes
were very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) by Ronald B. DeWaal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products.
, who wrote, directed, and starred in a popular play about Holmes in seven different productions on Broadway from 1899 (filmed in 1916), while the stories were still being published, to 1930. His version of Holmes, dressed in deerstalker
hat and Inverness cape
and smoking a large curved calabash pipe, contributed much to the popular image of the character. There are occasional hints of the deerstalker hat in Paget's original illustrations for The Strand, but it is by no means a regular accoutrement. Doyle's text is even vaguer, referring only to a travelling cap with earflaps in the passages with the relevant illustrations. He is also described as smoking several different types of pipes, varying them with his mood.
The calabash pipe is associated with Sherlock Holmes because early portrayers, particularly William Gillette
and Basil Rathbone
, made an artistic decision to use something large and easily recognized as a pipe. A calabash pipe has a large air chamber beneath the bowl that provides a cooling and mellowing effect. Holmes preferred harsh and strong tobaccos and therefore would eschew such a pipe. In fact, most stories, particularly The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
, described him as preferring a long-stemmed cherry-wood or a clay pipe.
In the first twenty years of the 20th century, Harry Arthur Saintsbury
played Holmes on stage in Gillette’s play more than 1,400 times. In subsequent revivals of this production, Holmes was played by John Wood
, John Neville, Patrick Horgan, Robert Stephens
and Leonard Nimoy
. Frank Langella
played Holmes in a 1981 production for HBO
.
A number of plays, two musicals -- Baker Street
, and Sherlock Holmes: The Musical
-- and a ballet have been written around Holmes.
Composer Jon Deak
wrote a work for solo double bass based on The Hound of the Baskervilles
, complete with narration and sound effects to mimic radio plays of the 1920s.
In the Summer of 2010, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Paul was revived at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End officially opening July 20, directed by Robin Herford (who directed The Woman in Black
) and starring television actors Peter Egan
as Holmes and Robert Daws
as Watson. The original production was staged in the West End in 1988 with Jeremy Brett
and Edward Hardwicke
reprisiong their television roles as Holmes and Watson. This psychological drama is an exploration of the inner torments of Baker Street’s most famous resident and an examination of the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Following Holmes’s seemingly fatal encounter with his nemesis Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, Watson finds his loyalty and friendship tested to the very limit while the great man is forced to confront his hidden demons.
, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
in 1900. This was followed by a 1905 Vitagraph
film Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom
, featuring Maurice Costello
as Holmes.
Many similar films were made in the early years of the twentieth century, most notably the 13 one- and two-reel films produced by the Danish Nordisk Film Company between 1908 and 1911. The only non-lost film is Sherlock Holmes i Bondefangerkløer, produced in 1910. Holmes was originally played by Viggo Larsen
. Other actors who played Holmes in those films were Otto Lagoni, Einar Zangenberg, Lauritz Olsen and Alwin Neuss. In 1911 the American Biograph
company produced a series of 11 short comedies based on the Holmes character with Mack Sennett
(later of Keystone Kops
fame) in the title role.
By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury
, who had played Holmes on stage hundreds of times in Gillette’s play, reprised the role in the 1916 film The Valley of Fear.
The next significant cycle of Holmes films were produced by the Stoll Films company in Britain
. Between 1921 and 1923 they produced a total of 47 two-reelers, all featuring noted West End actor Eille Norwood
in the lead with Hubert Willis
as Watson. A later British series produced between 1933 and 1936 starred Arthur Wontner
as Holmes.
John Barrymore
played the role in a 1922 movie entitled Sherlock Holmes
, with Roland Young
as Watson and William Powell
in his first screen appearance. This Goldwyn
film is the first Holmes movie made with high production values and a major star.
In 1931 Raymond Massey
played Sherlock Holmes in his screen debut, The Speckled Band
.
Also in the 1930's Arthur Wontner
played Holmes in five British films
.
Many other films have been comedies and parodies which poke fun at Holmes, Watson, their relationship and other characters. These have included Billy Wilder's
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
with Robert Stephens
and Colin Blakely
as Holmes and Watson.
More serious, non-canonical films were A Study in Terror
(with John Neville and Donald Houston
) and Murder by Decree
(with Christopher Plummer
and James Mason
) both of which involved Holmes and Watson investigating the murders by the Whitechapel
serial killer
Jack the Ripper
. And Young Sherlock Holmes
with Nicholas Rowe
as Holmes and Alan Cox
as Watson playing the duo as schoolboys (in this film one of Holmes' early mentors becomes an enemy who, in the final credits, hides out in the Swiss Alps
and signs his name as Moriarty
) which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not write.
The 1974 novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
, a "lost manuscript" of a Holmes adventure, was also made into a film in 1976 starring Nicol Williamson
as Holmes and Robert Duvall
as Watson.
The 1988 film Without a Clue
was a comedic twist on the familiar Holmes legend. Dr. John Watson (Ben Kingsley
) is a genius crime fighter and successful author. Fans of his novels clamor to see the real Sherlock Holmes and Watson realizes that his audience simply would not accept the fact that Holmes was a fabrication and to reveal himself as the creator and brains behind him would be tantamount to literary suicide. To solve his dilemmas, Watson hires Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine
), an alcoholic
, womanizing, ne'er-do-well actor to impersonate Holmes.
Robert Downey, Jr. appears as the detective in the Guy Ritchie
–directed Sherlock Holmes
(2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
(2011), with Jude Law
as Dr. Watson.
Columbia Pictures
is planning a Holmes comedy with Sacha Baron Cohen
as the great detective. It is being written by Etan Cohen and will be co-produced by Judd Apatow
.
In 2010, low budget film company The Asylum
produced Sherlock Holmes
, which is intended to capitalize on Guy Ritchie's film. It stars new actor Ben Syder as Holmes and Torchwood
actor Gareth David Lloyd as Watson. It was shot in Wales
and directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg.
See also the 1971 film They Might Be Giants
, starring George C. Scott
and Joanne Woodward
, which portrays a man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.
as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays. This was broadcast in September 1938 as part of the "Mercury Theater on the Air" series on CBS Radio.
Throughout the early 1940s on American Radio, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce performed as Holmes and Watson, respectively, in several series of canonical and original Sherlock Holmes stories on the The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
radio show. These broadcasts were loosely based on Doyle's cases. When Rathbone finally departed the role before the 1947 season, Tom Conway played Sherlock Holmes opposite Nigel Bruce for one season. After a change of networks, there were two more pairings: John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson in 1947-1948 and John Stanley and Ian Martin in 1948-1949. Both Stanley and Conway emulated Rathbone when performing Holmes to aid in continuity for the audience.
John Gielgud
played Holmes for BBC
radio in the 1950s, with Ralph Richardson
as Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud
, appeared in one of the episodes, perhaps inevitably, as Mycroft Holmes. As this series was co-produced by the American Broadcasting Company
, known American actors also appeared, such as Orson Welles
as Professor Moriarty in The Adventure of the Final Problem
.
Carleton Hobbs
portrayed Holmes in a series of BBC radio broadcasts that ran from 1952 to 1969, with Norman Shelley
playing Watson. Many of these were broadcast on Children's Hour
. Of the many actors who have portrayed Holmes and Watson for the BBC, the Hobbs and Shelley duo is the longest running.
There have been many other radio adaptations (over 750 in English), including a more recent BBC Radio 4
run featuring Clive Merrison
as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. Together, the two actors completed radio adaptations of every story in the canon between 1989 and 1998. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
, a new series consisting of original stories written exclusively by Bert Coules
was then commissioned, but following Williams' death from cancer in 2001, he was replaced by Andrew Sachs
. The episodes of The Further Adventures were based on throwaway references in Doyle's short stories and novels. The complete canonical run is available on CD and audio tape. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is also available on CD as four box sets each containing four episodes.
BBC Radio 2
also broadcast in 1999 a more ribald six-episode spoof
series featuring Holmes and Watson entitled The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
starring Roy Hudd
as Holmes ("England's greatest detective, master of disguise and toffee-nosed ponce"), Chris Emmett
as Watson ("contributor to the British Medical Journal
, Which Stethescope Magazine and inventor of the self-raising thermometer
") and June Whitfield
as Mrs. Hudson. Titles in this series included "The Case of the Clockwork Fiend", "The Mystery of the Obese Escapologist", "The Caes of the Deranged Botanist", "Sherlock Holmes and the Glorious Doppelganger", "Holmes Strikes a Happy Medium" and "The Demon Cobbler of Greek Street", and usually turned out to have Holmes' mortal enemy Moriarty (Geoffrey Whitehead
) behind each mystery. This series has since been re-broadcast on BBC Radio 7.
Starting in 1998, U.S. radio producer Jim French
was given permission from the Conan Doyle estate to produce new, original Sherlock Holmes stories for radio in North America. These are presented within the Imagination Theater
program on radio stations and XM satellite radio. The new stories are also broadcast under the banner The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. John Gilbert played Holmes until 2000, and subsequently by John Patrick Lowrie. Watson is played in all shows by Lawrence Albert. In late 1880s he worked on the case of Jack the Ripper
and met professor Richard Van Helsing
, a vampire
who destroyed Count Dracula
. Along with professor Challenger
, Holmes visited a secret valley of dinosaur
s in South America in 1896. The same year he worked with the American Secret Service "Elsewhere" to stop paranormal threats from another dimension. In 1910 he discovered a life extension
serum. At the beginning of World War I
he had a final confrontation with professor Moriarty
. After the war, he moved to Ukraine, giving Arthur Conan Doyle
the task to convince everyone that he was just an imaginary character. With the help of his serum, Holmes prolonged his life for several decades. In 1990s he indirectly helped Martin Mystère to capture a villain who found a formula of his serum.
adaptations screened from 1984 to 1994, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett
as Holmes, as the most faithful depiction of the stories ever produced. Initially with David Burke and subsequently Edward Hardwicke
as a capable Watson, all but 19 of the Conan Doyle stories were filmed before the premature death of Jeremy Brett from a heart attack in 1995. Between 1984 and 1994, 36 episodes and five films were produced over six series. Many regard Brett's performance as near-perfect; although his portrayal of Holmes as neurotic and somewhat arrogant, masterly as it is, is seen by some as being at odds with Doyle's descriptions of Holmes as more suave and congenial. Brett and Hardwicke reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson in 1988-89 in a West End stage play, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, written by Jeremy Paul (the secret being that Holmes had "invented" Moriarty as a challenge to his investigative ability).
One of the earliest television appearances was the BBC
mini series in 1951 starring Alan Wheatley
as Holmes and Raymond Francis
as Watson. Another early version
of Holmes and Watson was produced by Sheldon Reynolds in 1954, and starred Ronald Howard
as Holmes and Howard Marion-Crawford
as Doctor Watson produced in Paris, France.
In the 1960s, there was a BBC
TV series entitled Sherlock Holmes
with Douglas Wilmer
and Nigel Stock. Peter Cushing
, who had earlier played the detective in the Hammer
version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
, later took over from Wilmer in the lead role.
The 24 part 1980 series Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson starred Geoffrey Whitehead
as Holmes and Donald Pickering
as Watson.
John Cleese
played Holmes in a 1973 episode of "Comedy Playhouse": Elementary My Dear Watson. William Rushton
played Watson. Cleese later starred as Holmes' grandson - Arthur Sherlock Holmes - in the one-off TV special The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It
(1977). Arthur Lowe
played Dr. William Watson, the original doctor's grandson.
Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet
television produced a series of five television films at the Lenfilm
movie studio, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The series were split into eleven episodes and starred Vasily Livanov
as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin
as Watson.
In 1982, Granada Television
aired an eight part series entitled Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House
which told the story of Holmes' youth. The show starred Guy Henry as Sherlock Holmes.
In 1983, Ian Richardson
portrayed Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four
with David Healy
as Dr. John H. Watson. Later that same year, Richardson again played Holmes in a version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
with Donald Churchill as his Watson.
The android Lt. Commander Data
(Brent Spiner
) from Star Trek: The Next Generation
had a personal interest of visiting the holodeck
and playing Sherlock Holmes with his friend Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton
) as Dr John H. Watson , as can be seen in two episodes of the series. On these occasions, Commander Data would replay and try to solve some of his favorite Holmes stories, or let the computer improvise a new mystery in the style of Doyle's stories. On most of these occasions, these exercises would result in a quick solution, since his android brain would immediately pick up all available clues, and his superior deductive skills would quickly solve the problem. Attempting to let the computer create a more difficult mystery for him however, resulted in the computer creating a holographic Professor James Moriarty which was imbued with a measure of consciousness, and who formed the basis for a story arc for said two episodes. The holographic Moriarty quickly caused problems when he realised he was a holodeck creation, and demanded a 'full' life, with the possibility to leave the holodeck.
The contemporarily-set 1987 television movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes
starred Michael Pennington
as the detective and Margaret Colin
as Dr. Watson's granddaughter, Jane. Jane, after following directions written by her grandfather years ago, finds out that she has thawed Holmes who had been cryogenically frozen by Dr. Watson for 88 years due to Bubonic plague
. They become a team—the essential Victorian gentleman and a post-feminist young woman—to solve a case that combines elements of "The Sign of the Four" with elements from the celebrated news story of a plane hijacked for ransom by D.B. Cooper.
An animated series, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
, brings Holmes into the future through the marvels of science. There is also a Japanese animated series called Sherlock Hound
featuring anthropomorphic canine characters. Several of its episodes were directed by Hayao Miyazaki
. Another Japanese anime series called Case Closed
, based on the manga
of the same name, features a main character by the name of Conan whom is heavily influenced by Sherlock Holmes.
The children's television series Wishbone
featured Holmes and Watson in two episodes: "The Slobbery Hound" (based on The Hound of the Baskervilles
) and "A Dogged Exposé" (A Scandal in Bohemia
). Another children's television series, The Adventures of Shirley Holmes
, which ran from 1996 to 1999, features a main young, modern-day female character who claims to be a distant descendant of Sherlock Holmes himself and has inherited his intellect in solving crimes.
In the series, Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years (1991-1992 TV films), where Sherlock Holmes (played by Christopher Lee
and Dr. Watson played by Patrick Macnee
are older adults continue investigating the cases — two files: Incident at Victoria Falls
and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady
.
In 1991, Charlton Heston
played Holmes in the Turner Network Television
production of Paul Giovanni
's play The Crucifer of Blood
.
In 2000 the telemovie Murder Rooms featured Ian Richardson
as Dr. Joseph Bell, who solved (fictional) crimes with the aid of his young pupil Arthur Conan Doyle. Four more telemovies followed in 2001. The series was subtitled "The Dark Origins of Sherlock Holmes" for US syndication.
From 2000 to 2002, Muse Entertainment Enterprises
produced four television films for the Hallmark Channel
, starring Matt Frewer
as Holmes and Kenneth Welsh
as Dr Watson, in The Hound of the Baskervilles
(2000), The Royal Scandal (2001), The Sign of Four
(2001) and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire
(2002).
2002 saw a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
featuring Richard Roxburgh
. Ian Hart
played Dr. Watson then and also in the 2004 BBC
airing of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
, alternatively billed as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. An original screenplay "based on the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", this film takes place in 1902, with Dr. Watson "saving a dear friend from narcotics and boredom", this friend being an opium-addicted and increasingly weak Sherlock Holmes. Rupert Everett
plays the Great Detective.
2002 also saw the made for television
cable movie, Case of Evil
, about a 20-something Sherlock Holmes (James D'Arcy
) and a Doctor Watson who worked as an early practitioner of autopsies, on the trail of Holmes' archenemy
, Professor Moriarty
(Vincent D'Onofrio
).
In 2007, the BBC
released Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
, a children's series focusing on the Baker Street Irregulars
and starring Jonathan Pryce
as Holmes.
In 2008, the BBC announced Sherlock, a contemporary remake of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, created by Steven Moffat
and Mark Gatiss
. Originally commissioned as a one-off 60-minute pilot, three 90-minute episodes were ordered in 2009 and broadcast in 2010. Benedict Cumberbatch
stars as Sherlock Holmes, with Martin Freeman
as Doctor Watson, and Rupert Graves
as Inspector Lestrade. The series has been renewed.
On 20 March 2009, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson appeared in the episode, "Trials of the Demon!" of Batman: The Brave and the Bold
where Sherlock Holmes finished the magic spell to bring Batman
to his time after the mob put Jason Blood a.k.a. Etrigan on the blame of "missing souls" of the women. After the rescue of Jason Blood, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Batman and Etrigan hunt for Gentleman Ghost
who was responsibility for missing souls. At first, Dr. Watson suggests that maybe James Moriarty is responsible. Sherlock was voiced by Ian Buchanan
and Watson was voiced by Jim Piddock
.
On 7 October 2010, a Japanese anime began airing called "Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
" about a girl named Sherlock "Sherly" Holmes and her 3 friends, who are based on other famous detectives, and how they retrieve their toys, or special powers, as they attend a detective academy. The anime has spawned a video game, trading card game, and a manga.
s
Additionally, Sherlock Holmes was spoofed in the Lozenge and Hampshire
online adventure game series by James Evans.
and Hannah Gordon
. The audio productions were done in association with BBC 7
, but are no longer available. The texts of all five short stories are still posted, with accompanying illustrations and illustration galleries, as well as an edited transcript of an interview with Bert Coules
. The short story texts can also be downloaded as eBooks in three different formats.
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
were very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) by Ronald B. DeWaal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products.
Stage
The actor most associated with Holmes on stage was William GilletteWilliam Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....
, who wrote, directed, and starred in a popular play about Holmes in seven different productions on Broadway from 1899 (filmed in 1916), while the stories were still being published, to 1930. His version of Holmes, dressed in deerstalker
Deerstalker
A deerstalker is a type of hat that is typically worn in rural areas, often for hunting, especially deer stalking. Because of the hat's popular association with Sherlock Holmes, it is also a stereotypical hat of a detective.-Construction:...
hat and Inverness cape
Inverness Cape
Even though a wide variety of coats, overcoats, and rain gear are worn with Highland Dress to deal with inclement weather, the Inverness cape has come to be almost universally adopted for rainy weather by pipe bands the world over, and many other kilt wearers also find it to be the preferable...
and smoking a large curved calabash pipe, contributed much to the popular image of the character. There are occasional hints of the deerstalker hat in Paget's original illustrations for The Strand, but it is by no means a regular accoutrement. Doyle's text is even vaguer, referring only to a travelling cap with earflaps in the passages with the relevant illustrations. He is also described as smoking several different types of pipes, varying them with his mood.
The calabash pipe is associated with Sherlock Holmes because early portrayers, particularly William Gillette
William Gillette
William Hooker Gillette was an American actor, playwright and stage-manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who is best remembered today for portraying Sherlock Holmes....
and Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
, made an artistic decision to use something large and easily recognized as a pipe. A calabash pipe has a large air chamber beneath the bowl that provides a cooling and mellowing effect. Holmes preferred harsh and strong tobaccos and therefore would eschew such a pipe. In fact, most stories, particularly The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the last of the twelve collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
, described him as preferring a long-stemmed cherry-wood or a clay pipe.
In the first twenty years of the 20th century, Harry Arthur Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury, usually called H. A. Saintsbury was an English actor and playwright. A leading man, he became well known for his stage interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was an early mentor of Charlie Chaplin and is considered an authority on the work of Sir Henry Irving.Called Arthur by...
played Holmes on stage in Gillette’s play more than 1,400 times. In subsequent revivals of this production, Holmes was played by John Wood
John Wood (English actor)
John Wood, CBE was an English actor.-Biography:Wood was born in Derbyshire and studied law at Jesus College, Oxford where he was president of the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Changing to drama, Wood became known as a stage actor, appearing in numerous West End productions as well as on...
, John Neville, Patrick Horgan, Robert Stephens
Robert Stephens
Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
and Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
. Frank Langella
Frank Langella
-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...
played Holmes in a 1981 production for HBO
Home Box Office
HBO, short for Home Box Office, is an American premium cable television network, owned by Time Warner. , HBO's programming reaches 28.2 million subscribers in the United States, making it the second largest premium network in America . In addition to its U.S...
.
A number of plays, two musicals -- Baker Street
Baker Street (musical)
Baker Street is a musical with a book by Jerome Coopersmith and music and lyrics by Marian Grudeff and Raymond Jessel.Loosely based on the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia by Arthur Conan Doyle, it is set in and around London in 1897, the year in which England celebrated the Diamond...
, and Sherlock Holmes: The Musical
Sherlock Holmes: The Musical
Sherlock Holmes - The Musical is a musical based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with music, lyrics and book by Leslie Bricusse. The musical opened on 22 October 1988 at the Northcott Theatre, in Exeter and ran for a limited season of five weeks. It then played at the Cambridge...
-- and a ballet have been written around Holmes.
Composer Jon Deak
Jon Deak
Jon Deak is a Hungarian American double bassist and composer. He is currently associate principal bass of the New York Philharmonic, a position he's held since 1973 after joining the Philharmonic in 1969 under Pierre Boulez, and a prominent contemporary composer of orchestral and chamber works...
wrote a work for solo double bass based on The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
, complete with narration and sound effects to mimic radio plays of the 1920s.
In the Summer of 2010, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Paul was revived at the Duchess Theatre in London's West End officially opening July 20, directed by Robin Herford (who directed The Woman in Black
The Woman in Black (play)
The Woman in Black is a 1987 stage play, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. The play is based on the book of the same name, which was written in 1983 by Susan Hill. It is notable for only having two actors perform the whole play. It was first performed at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, in...
) and starring television actors Peter Egan
Peter Egan
Peter Egan is a British actor known for playing smooth neighbour Paul Ryman in 1980s sitcom Ever Decreasing Circles. He is married to retired actress Myra Frances.-Early life:...
as Holmes and Robert Daws
Robert Daws
Robert Daws is an English actor. He is most notable for a variety of roles he has played in television dramas.-Career:Daws played Tuppy Glossop in the early 1990s version of Jeeves and Wooster...
as Watson. The original production was staged in the West End in 1988 with Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...
and Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke , sometimes credited as Edward Hardwick, was an English actor.-Early life and career:...
reprisiong their television roles as Holmes and Watson. This psychological drama is an exploration of the inner torments of Baker Street’s most famous resident and an examination of the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Following Holmes’s seemingly fatal encounter with his nemesis Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, Watson finds his loyalty and friendship tested to the very limit while the great man is forced to confront his hidden demons.
Film
It has been estimated that Sherlock Holmes is the most prolific screen character in the history of cinema. The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes BaffledSherlock Holmes Baffled
Sherlock Holmes Baffled is a very short American silent film created in 1900 with cinematography by Arthur Marvin. It is the earliest known film to feature Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes, albeit in a form unlike that of later screen incarnations. The inclusion of the...
, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over three thousand short...
in 1900. This was followed by a 1905 Vitagraph
Vitagraph Studios
American Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. By 1907 it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros...
film Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom was a 1905 American silent film directed by J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph Studios. It was the second film based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, following the 1900 Mutoscope trick film Sherlock Holmes Baffled, and is usually...
, featuring Maurice Costello
Maurice Costello
Maurice Costello was a prominent vaudeville actor of the late 1890s and early 1900s, who later played a principal role in early American films, as both a leading man, supporting player and a director....
as Holmes.
Many similar films were made in the early years of the twentieth century, most notably the 13 one- and two-reel films produced by the Danish Nordisk Film Company between 1908 and 1911. The only non-lost film is Sherlock Holmes i Bondefangerkløer, produced in 1910. Holmes was originally played by Viggo Larsen
Viggo Larsen
Viggo Larsen was a Danish film actor, director and producer. He appeared in 75 films between 1906 and 1942. He also directed 60 films between 1906 and 1921.He was born and died in Copenhagen, Denmark....
. Other actors who played Holmes in those films were Otto Lagoni, Einar Zangenberg, Lauritz Olsen and Alwin Neuss. In 1911 the American Biograph
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1928. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over three thousand short...
company produced a series of 11 short comedies based on the Holmes character with Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
(later of Keystone Kops
Keystone Kops
The Keystone Kops were incompetent fictional policemen, featured in silent film comedies in the early 20th century. The movies were produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. The idea came from Hank Mann who also played police chief Tehiezel in the first film...
fame) in the title role.
By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury
Harry Arthur Saintsbury, usually called H. A. Saintsbury was an English actor and playwright. A leading man, he became well known for his stage interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was an early mentor of Charlie Chaplin and is considered an authority on the work of Sir Henry Irving.Called Arthur by...
, who had played Holmes on stage hundreds of times in Gillette’s play, reprised the role in the 1916 film The Valley of Fear.
The next significant cycle of Holmes films were produced by the Stoll Films company in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Between 1921 and 1923 they produced a total of 47 two-reelers, all featuring noted West End actor Eille Norwood
Eille Norwood
Eille Norwood was a British actor who spent most of his screen career playing Sherlock Holmes. He was born Anthony Edward Brett in York, England. He apparently took his stage name from his lady friend Eileen and the town of Norwood...
in the lead with Hubert Willis
Hubert Willis
Hubert Willis was a British actor. He was best known for his recurring role as Doctor Watson in a series of silent Sherlock Holmes films co-starring with Ellie Norwood.-Selected filmography:* The Manxman * The Manchester Man...
as Watson. A later British series produced between 1933 and 1936 starred Arthur Wontner
Arthur Wontner
Arthur Wontner was a British actor best known for playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective Sherlock Holmes in five films from 1931 to 1937...
as Holmes.
John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
played the role in a 1922 movie entitled Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (1922 film)
Sherlock Holmes is an American silent film starring John Barrymore as Holmes and Roland Young as Watson. The film was titled Moriarty in the UK.-Production background:...
, with Roland Young
Roland Young
Roland Young was an English actor.-Early life and career:Born in London, England, Young was educated at Sherborne School, Dorset and the University of London before being accepted into Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...
as Watson and William Powell
William Powell
William Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
in his first screen appearance. This Goldwyn
Goldwyn Pictures
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in 1916 by Samuel Goldfish in partnership with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn using an amalgamation of both last names to create the name...
film is the first Holmes movie made with high production values and a major star.
In 1931 Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
played Sherlock Holmes in his screen debut, The Speckled Band
The Speckled Band (1931 film)
The Speckled Band is a 1931 British film directed by Jack Raymond and an adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle's story The Adventure of the Speckled Band.- Plot summary :...
.
Also in the 1930's Arthur Wontner
Arthur Wontner
Arthur Wontner was a British actor best known for playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective Sherlock Holmes in five films from 1931 to 1937...
played Holmes in five British films
Sherlock Holmes (1931 film series)
-Production:Having been told he resembled Doyle's creation for years, Wontner was finally cast in the role for The Sleeping Cardinal in 1931. Wontner was noticed after portraying Sexton Blake at the Prince Edward Theater in 1930....
.
Many other films have been comedies and parodies which poke fun at Holmes, Watson, their relationship and other characters. These have included Billy Wilder's
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a 1970 film directed and produced by Billy Wilder; he also shared writing credit with his longtime collaborator I. A. L. Diamond. It starred Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes and Colin Blakely as Dr. Watson...
with Robert Stephens
Robert Stephens
Sir Robert Stephens was a leading English actor in the early years of England's Royal National Theatre.-Early life and career:...
and Colin Blakely
Colin Blakely
Colin George Blakely was a Northern Irish character actor. He was considered an actor of great range.-Early life:...
as Holmes and Watson.
More serious, non-canonical films were A Study in Terror
A Study in Terror
A Study in Terror is a 1965 British thriller film directed by James Hill and starring John Neville as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Houston as Dr. Watson...
(with John Neville and Donald Houston
Donald Houston
Donald Daniel Houston was a Welsh actor whose first two films – The Blue Lagoon with Jean Simmons, and A Run for Your Money with Sir Alec Guinness – were highly successful...
) and Murder by Decree
Murder by Decree
Murder by Decree is an Anglo-Canadian thriller film involving Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in the case of the serial murderer Jack the Ripper...
(with Christopher Plummer
Christopher Plummer
Arthur Christopher Orne Plummer, CC is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1957's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther and The Man Who Would Be King.In a career that spans over five...
and James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
) both of which involved Holmes and Watson investigating the murders by the Whitechapel
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...
serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
. And Young Sherlock Holmes
Young Sherlock Holmes
Young Sherlock Holmes is a 1985 mystery/adventure film directed by Barry Levinson, produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Chris Columbus, based on characters by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
with Nicholas Rowe
Nicholas Rowe (actor)
Nicholas James Sebastian Rowe is a Scottish actor.-Biography:Rowe was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of English parents Alison, a singer, and Andrew Rowe, a Member of Parliament and editor. He attended Eton and received a BA in Hispanic Studies from Bristol University...
as Holmes and Alan Cox
Alan Cox (actor)
-Biography:He is the son of the Emmy Award winning actor Brian Cox and his first wife Caroline Burt. Cox was educated at St Paul's School in London. He has a sister, Margaret, and a half brother Torin Kamran Charles....
as Watson playing the duo as schoolboys (in this film one of Holmes' early mentors becomes an enemy who, in the final credits, hides out in the Swiss Alps
Swiss Alps
The Swiss Alps are the portion of the Alps mountain range that lies within Switzerland. Because of their central position within the entire Alpine range, they are also known as the Central Alps....
and signs his name as Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
) which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not write.
The 1974 novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. is a 1974 novel by American writer Nicholas Meyer. It is written as a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, and was made into a film of the same name in 1976....
, a "lost manuscript" of a Holmes adventure, was also made into a film in 1976 starring Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson
Nicol Williamson is a Scottish-born English actor who was described by English playwright John Osborne as "the greatest actor since Marlon Brando".-Early life:...
as Holmes and Robert Duvall
Robert Duvall
Robert Selden Duvall is an American actor and director. He has won an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA over the course of his career....
as Watson.
The 1988 film Without a Clue
Without a Clue
Without a Clue is a 1988 British comedy film directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley and Lysette Anthony.-Plot:...
was a comedic twist on the familiar Holmes legend. Dr. John Watson (Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
) is a genius crime fighter and successful author. Fans of his novels clamor to see the real Sherlock Holmes and Watson realizes that his audience simply would not accept the fact that Holmes was a fabrication and to reveal himself as the creator and brains behind him would be tantamount to literary suicide. To solve his dilemmas, Watson hires Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
), an alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, womanizing, ne'er-do-well actor to impersonate Holmes.
Robert Downey, Jr. appears as the detective in the Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie
Guy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and film maker who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes.-Early life:...
–directed Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)
Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 action-mystery film based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. The screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon...
(2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an upcoming 2011 British-American action mystery film directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. It is a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur...
(2011), with Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...
as Dr. Watson.
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
is planning a Holmes comedy with Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
as the great detective. It is being written by Etan Cohen and will be co-produced by Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. He is well known for his work in comedy films, especially for films he has been involved with throughout the latter half of the 2000s. He is the founder of Apatow Productions, a film production company that also developed the...
.
In 2010, low budget film company The Asylum
The Asylum
The Asylum is an American film studio and distributor which focuses on producing low-budget, usually direct-to-video productions. The studio has produced titles that capitalize on productions by major studios; these titles have been dubbed "mockbusters" by the press.-History:The Asylum was founded...
produced Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (2010 film)
Sherlock Holmes is a 2010 direct-to-DVD mystery film directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, produced by independent American film studio The Asylum and released by British distributor Revolver Entertainment. It is based on the Sherlock Holmes characters created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
, which is intended to capitalize on Guy Ritchie's film. It stars new actor Ben Syder as Holmes and Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
actor Gareth David Lloyd as Watson. It was shot in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg.
See also the 1971 film They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants (film)
They Might Be Giants is a 1971 film based on the play of the same name starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. Occasionally cited mistakenly as a Broadway play, it never in fact opened in the USA...
, starring George C. Scott
George C. Scott
George Campbell Scott was an American stage and film actor, director and producer. He was best known for his stage work, as well as his portrayal of General George S. Patton in the film Patton, and as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr...
and Joanne Woodward
Joanne Woodward
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American actress, television and theatrical producer, and widow of Paul Newman...
, which portrays a man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.
Radio
One famous radio appearance starred Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays. This was broadcast in September 1938 as part of the "Mercury Theater on the Air" series on CBS Radio.
Throughout the early 1940s on American Radio, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce performed as Holmes and Watson, respectively, in several series of canonical and original Sherlock Holmes stories on the The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was an old-time radio show which aired in the USA from October 2, 1939 to July 7, 1947. Most episodes were written by the team of Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher....
radio show. These broadcasts were loosely based on Doyle's cases. When Rathbone finally departed the role before the 1947 season, Tom Conway played Sherlock Holmes opposite Nigel Bruce for one season. After a change of networks, there were two more pairings: John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson in 1947-1948 and John Stanley and Ian Martin in 1948-1949. Both Stanley and Conway emulated Rathbone when performing Holmes to aid in continuity for the audience.
John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...
played Holmes for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio in the 1950s, with Ralph Richardson
Ralph Richardson
Sir Ralph David Richardson was an English actor, one of a group of theatrical knights of the mid-20th century who, though more closely associated with the stage, also appeared in several classic films....
as Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud
Val Gielgud
Val Henry Gielgud was an English actor, writer, director and broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newer medium of television....
, appeared in one of the episodes, perhaps inevitably, as Mycroft Holmes. As this series was co-produced by the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
, known American actors also appeared, such as Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as Professor Moriarty in The Adventure of the Final Problem
The Adventure of the Final Problem
"The Final Problem" is a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle featuring his detective character Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in Strand Magazine in December 1893. It appears in book form as part of the collection The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes...
.
Carleton Hobbs
Carleton Hobbs
Carleton Percy Hobbs was an English actor with many film, radio and television appearances. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in 80 radio adaptations between 1952 and 1969, and also starred in the radio adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour.Hobbs was born in Farnborough, Hampshire, into a...
portrayed Holmes in a series of BBC radio broadcasts that ran from 1952 to 1969, with Norman Shelley
Norman Shelley
Norman Shelley was an English actor, best known for his work in radio, in particular for the BBC's Children's Hour. He also had a recurring role as Colonel Danby in the long-running radio soap opera The Archers....
playing Watson. Many of these were broadcast on Children's Hour
Children's Hour
Children's Hour—at first: "The Children's Hour", from a verse by Longfellow—was the name of the BBC's principal recreational service for children during the period when radio dominated broadcasting....
. Of the many actors who have portrayed Holmes and Watson for the BBC, the Hobbs and Shelley duo is the longest running.
There have been many other radio adaptations (over 750 in English), including a more recent BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
run featuring Clive Merrison
Clive Merrison
Clive Merrison is a Welsh actor of film, television, stage and radio. He trained at Rose Bruford College.- Television :...
as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. Together, the two actors completed radio adaptations of every story in the canon between 1989 and 1998. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
This article is about the BBC Radio 4 series transmitted from 2002 to 2010. There is also a U.S. produced series, which began in 1998, that transmits under the same title....
, a new series consisting of original stories written exclusively by Bert Coules
Bert Coules
Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC, who has produced a number of adaptations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage.-Early years:...
was then commissioned, but following Williams' death from cancer in 2001, he was replaced by Andrew Sachs
Andrew Sachs
Andrew Sachs is a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and is best known for his portrayals of Manuel in Fawlty Towers, a role for which he was BAFTA-nominated, and Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.-Early life:Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina , a...
. The episodes of The Further Adventures were based on throwaway references in Doyle's short stories and novels. The complete canonical run is available on CD and audio tape. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is also available on CD as four box sets each containing four episodes.
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
also broadcast in 1999 a more ribald six-episode spoof
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
series featuring Holmes and Watson entitled The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes was a BBC Radio 2 comedy series written by Tony Hare. It starred Roy Hudd, Chris Emmett, Jeffrey Holland, and June Whitfield, and was broadcast between January 16, 1999, to February 20, 1999...
starring Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd
Roy Hudd, OBE is an English comedian, actor, radio host and author, and an authority on the history of music hall entertainment.- Early life :...
as Holmes ("England's greatest detective, master of disguise and toffee-nosed ponce"), Chris Emmett
Chris Emmett
Chris Emmett is a British actor and comedian best known for his work in the late 1970s on the BBC Radio 4 comedy The Burkiss Way. He was a regular on various series starring Roy Hudd, including The News Huddlines, The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Huddwinks and Crowned Hudds...
as Watson ("contributor to the British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
, Which Stethescope Magazine and inventor of the self-raising thermometer
Thermometer
Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer (from the...
") and June Whitfield
June Whitfield
June Rosemary Whitfield, CBE is an English actress, well known in the United Kingdom since the 1950s for roles in radio and television comedy series....
as Mrs. Hudson. Titles in this series included "The Case of the Clockwork Fiend", "The Mystery of the Obese Escapologist", "The Caes of the Deranged Botanist", "Sherlock Holmes and the Glorious Doppelganger", "Holmes Strikes a Happy Medium" and "The Demon Cobbler of Greek Street", and usually turned out to have Holmes' mortal enemy Moriarty (Geoffrey Whitehead
Geoffrey Whitehead
Geoffrey Whitehead is an English actor. He has appeared in a huge range of television, film and radio roles. In the theatre, he has played at the Shakespeare Globe, St...
) behind each mystery. This series has since been re-broadcast on BBC Radio 7.
Starting in 1998, U.S. radio producer Jim French
Jim French (radio)
James R. "Jim" French is an American radio personality and producer who has written and produced, as of 2011, over 803 radio shows, including The Adventures of Harry Nile and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series.-Life and career:...
was given permission from the Conan Doyle estate to produce new, original Sherlock Holmes stories for radio in North America. These are presented within the Imagination Theater
Imagination Theater
Imagination Theater is an American syndicated radio drama program produced by Jim French Productions. It airs on FM and AM radio stations across the United States and also on XM satellite radio. It features modern radio dramas, the most popular of which are The Adventures of Harry Nile and The...
program on radio stations and XM satellite radio. The new stories are also broadcast under the banner The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. John Gilbert played Holmes until 2000, and subsequently by John Patrick Lowrie. Watson is played in all shows by Lawrence Albert. In late 1880s he worked on the case of Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper
"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...
and met professor Richard Van Helsing
Abraham Van Helsing
Professor Abraham van Helsing is a protagonist from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula.Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc." The character is best known as a...
, a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
who destroyed Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
. Along with professor Challenger
Professor Challenger
George Edward Challenger, better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character in a series of science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...
, Holmes visited a secret valley of dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s in South America in 1896. The same year he worked with the American Secret Service "Elsewhere" to stop paranormal threats from another dimension. In 1910 he discovered a life extension
Life extension
Life extension science, also known as anti-aging medicine, experimental gerontology, and biomedical gerontology, is the study of slowing down or reversing the processes of aging to extend both the maximum and average lifespan...
serum. At the beginning of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he had a final confrontation with professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
. After the war, he moved to Ukraine, giving Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
the task to convince everyone that he was just an imaginary character. With the help of his serum, Holmes prolonged his life for several decades. In 1990s he indirectly helped Martin Mystère to capture a villain who found a formula of his serum.
Television
There have been many television adaptations of the better-known Sherlock Holmes tales, notably The Hound of the Baskervilles, over the years. Many aficionados consider the Granada TelevisionGranada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
adaptations screened from 1984 to 1994, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett
Jeremy Brett , born Peter Jeremy William Huggins, was an English actor, most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in four Granada TV series.-Early life:...
as Holmes, as the most faithful depiction of the stories ever produced. Initially with David Burke and subsequently Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke
Edward Hardwicke , sometimes credited as Edward Hardwick, was an English actor.-Early life and career:...
as a capable Watson, all but 19 of the Conan Doyle stories were filmed before the premature death of Jeremy Brett from a heart attack in 1995. Between 1984 and 1994, 36 episodes and five films were produced over six series. Many regard Brett's performance as near-perfect; although his portrayal of Holmes as neurotic and somewhat arrogant, masterly as it is, is seen by some as being at odds with Doyle's descriptions of Holmes as more suave and congenial. Brett and Hardwicke reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson in 1988-89 in a West End stage play, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, written by Jeremy Paul (the secret being that Holmes had "invented" Moriarty as a challenge to his investigative ability).
One of the earliest television appearances was the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
mini series in 1951 starring Alan Wheatley
Alan Wheatley
Alan Wheatley was a radio announcer who turned to stage and screen acting in the 1930s and was much seen in British films, being a television actor during the black and white era....
as Holmes and Raymond Francis
Raymond Francis
Raymond Francis was an English actor best known for his role as Detective Chief Superintendent Tom Lockhart in the Associated-Rediffusion detective series Murder Bag, Crime Sheet and No Hiding Place...
as Watson. Another early version
Sherlock Holmes (1954 TV Series)
The first and only American television series of Sherlock Holmes adventures aired in syndication in the fall of 1954. The 39 half-hour mostly original stories were produced by Sheldon Reynolds and filmed in France by Guild Films, starring Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion Crawford as Watson...
of Holmes and Watson was produced by Sheldon Reynolds in 1954, and starred Ronald Howard
Ronald Howard (British actor)
Ronald Howard was an English actor and writer best known in the U.S. for starring in a weekly Sherlock Holmes television series in 1954. He was the son of actor Leslie Howard.- Life and work :...
as Holmes and Howard Marion-Crawford
Howard Marion-Crawford
Howard Marion-Crawford , the grandson of writer F. Marion Crawford, was an English character actor, best known for his portrayal of Dr. Watson in the 1954 television adaptation of Sherlock Holmes...
as Doctor Watson produced in Paris, France.
In the 1960s, there was a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
TV series entitled Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes (1965 TV series)
Sherlock Holmes was a series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by British television company BBC between 1965 and 1968.-Production:...
with Douglas Wilmer
Douglas Wilmer
-Early life:Wilmer was born in London and educated at King's School, Canterbury and Stonyhurst College. He trained at RADA but was called up to the Army in World War II. Posted to an antitank battery in the Royal West African Frontier Force, he was invalided out after he acquired tuberculosis. He...
and Nigel Stock. Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
, who had earlier played the detective in the Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
, later took over from Wilmer in the lead role.
The 24 part 1980 series Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson starred Geoffrey Whitehead
Geoffrey Whitehead
Geoffrey Whitehead is an English actor. He has appeared in a huge range of television, film and radio roles. In the theatre, he has played at the Shakespeare Globe, St...
as Holmes and Donald Pickering
Donald Pickering
Donald Ellis Pickering was an English actor.Pickering had appeared in many television, film and radio roles...
as Watson.
John Cleese
John Cleese
John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...
played Holmes in a 1973 episode of "Comedy Playhouse": Elementary My Dear Watson. William Rushton
William Rushton
William Rushton may refer to:* W. A. H. Rushton British physiologist* Willie Rushton , British comedian...
played Watson. Cleese later starred as Holmes' grandson - Arthur Sherlock Holmes - in the one-off TV special The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It
The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It is a 1977 comedy starring John Cleese. It is a low-budget spoof of the Sherlock Holmes detective series, as well as the mystery genre in general.- Plot :...
(1977). Arthur Lowe
Arthur Lowe
Arthur Lowe was a BAFTA Award winning English actor. He was best known for playing Captain George Mainwaring in the popular British sitcom Dad's Army from 1968 until 1977.-Early life:...
played Dr. William Watson, the original doctor's grandson.
Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
television produced a series of five television films at the Lenfilm
Lenfilm
Kinostudiya "Lenfilm" is a production unit of the Russian film industry, with its own film studio, located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, formerly Leningrad, R.S.F.S.R. Today OAO "Kinostudiya Lenfilm" is a corporation with its stakes shared between private owners, and several private film studios,...
movie studio, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The series were split into eleven episodes and starred Vasily Livanov
Vasily Livanov
Vasily Borisovich Livanov MBE is a Soviet and Russian film actor, and screenwriter.-Biography:His father Boris Livanov was a prominent actor of the Moscow Art Theatre...
as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin
Vitaly Solomin
Vitaly Mefodievich Solomin was a Soviet and Russian actor, director and screenwriter. He was the younger brother of Yury Solomin....
as Watson.
In 1982, Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
aired an eight part series entitled Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House
Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House
Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House was a 8-episode television series about the youthful years of Sherlock Holmes. The show was produced by Granada Television and premiered on 31 October 1982.-Cast:*Guy Henry as Sherlock Holmes...
which told the story of Holmes' youth. The show starred Guy Henry as Sherlock Holmes.
In 1983, Ian Richardson
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson CBE was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's House of Cards trilogy. He was also a leading Shakespearean stage actor....
portrayed Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four (1983 film)
The Sign of Four is a British television film directed by Desmond Davis and starring Ian Richardson and David Healy. The movie is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes story.-Production:...
with David Healy
David Healy (actor)
David Healy was an American-born actor who starred in many British and American television shows. His credits include voices for the Supermarionation series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service, as well as parts in UFO, The Troubleshooters, Randall and Hopkirk , Space...
as Dr. John H. Watson. Later that same year, Richardson again played Holmes in a version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983 film)
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a British television film directed by Douglas Hickox and starring Ian Richardson as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Churchill as Dr. John H. Watson...
with Donald Churchill as his Watson.
The android Lt. Commander Data
Data (Star Trek)
Lieutenant Commander Data is a character in the fictional Star Trek universe portrayed by actor Brent Spiner. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek...
(Brent Spiner
Brent Spiner
Brent Jay Spiner is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of the android Lieutenant Commander Data in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and four subsequent films. His portrayal of Data in Star Trek: First Contact and of Dr...
) from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
had a personal interest of visiting the holodeck
Holodeck
A holodeck, in the fictional Star Trek universe, is a simulated reality facility located on starships and starbases. The first use of a "holodeck" by that name in the Star Trek universe was in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint", although a conceptually...
and playing Sherlock Holmes with his friend Geordi LaForge (LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton
Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr. , professionally known as LeVar Burton, is an American actor, director, producer and author who first came to prominence portraying Kunta Kinte in the 1977 award-winning ABC television miniseries Roots, based on the novel by Alex Haley...
) as Dr John H. Watson , as can be seen in two episodes of the series. On these occasions, Commander Data would replay and try to solve some of his favorite Holmes stories, or let the computer improvise a new mystery in the style of Doyle's stories. On most of these occasions, these exercises would result in a quick solution, since his android brain would immediately pick up all available clues, and his superior deductive skills would quickly solve the problem. Attempting to let the computer create a more difficult mystery for him however, resulted in the computer creating a holographic Professor James Moriarty which was imbued with a measure of consciousness, and who formed the basis for a story arc for said two episodes. The holographic Moriarty quickly caused problems when he realised he was a holodeck creation, and demanded a 'full' life, with the possibility to leave the holodeck.
The contemporarily-set 1987 television movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (TV)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes was a 1987 CBS television movie and pilot created and written by Bob Shayne involving the famous detective Sherlock Holmes finding himself in the modern world.- Plot :...
starred Michael Pennington
Michael Pennington
Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington is a British director and actor who, together with director Michael Bogdanov, founded the English Shakespeare Company...
as the detective and Margaret Colin
Margaret Colin
Margaret Colin is an American actress. She is known for her role as Margo Montgomery Hughes # 1 on As the World Turns and for her role as Eleanor Waldorf-Rose on Gossip Girl.-Early life:...
as Dr. Watson's granddaughter, Jane. Jane, after following directions written by her grandfather years ago, finds out that she has thawed Holmes who had been cryogenically frozen by Dr. Watson for 88 years due to Bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
. They become a team—the essential Victorian gentleman and a post-feminist young woman—to solve a case that combines elements of "The Sign of the Four" with elements from the celebrated news story of a plane hijacked for ransom by D.B. Cooper.
An animated series, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century is a animation series, in which Sherlock Holmes is brought back to life in the 22nd century. The series is a co–production by DiC and Scottish Television and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Special Class Animated Program.- Overview :The concept series was...
, brings Holmes into the future through the marvels of science. There is also a Japanese animated series called Sherlock Hound
Sherlock Hound
is an anime television series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series where almost all the characters are depicted as anthropomorphic dogs. The show featured regular appearances of Jules Verne-steampunk style technology, adding a 19th-century science-fiction atmosphere to the series...
featuring anthropomorphic canine characters. Several of its episodes were directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
. Another Japanese anime series called Case Closed
Case Closed
Case Closed, known as in Japan, is a Japanese detective manga series written and illustrated by Gosho Aoyama. The series is serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday since February 2, 1994, and has been collected in 73 tankōbon volumes as of September 2011...
, based on the manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
of the same name, features a main character by the name of Conan whom is heavily influenced by Sherlock Holmes.
The children's television series Wishbone
Wishbone (TV series)
Wishbone is a television show which aired from 1995 to 1998 and reruns from 1998 to 2001 in the United States featuring a Jack Russell Terrier of the same name. The main character, the talking dog Wishbone, lives with his owner Joe Talbot in the fictional modern town of Oakdale, Texas...
featured Holmes and Watson in two episodes: "The Slobbery Hound" (based on The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...
) and "A Dogged Exposé" (A Scandal in Bohemia
A Scandal in Bohemia
"A Scandal in Bohemia" was the first of Arthur Conan Doyle's 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories to be published in The Strand Magazine and the first Sherlock Holmes story illustrated by Sidney Paget....
). Another children's television series, The Adventures of Shirley Holmes
The Adventures of Shirley Holmes
The Adventures of Shirley Holmes is a Canadian mystery TV series that originally aired from 1996 to 1999. The show was created by Ellis Iddon and Phil Meagher who had produced a successful series of books with Harper Collins, teaming up with Credo and Forefront to develop the TV series...
, which ran from 1996 to 1999, features a main young, modern-day female character who claims to be a distant descendant of Sherlock Holmes himself and has inherited his intellect in solving crimes.
In the series, Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years (1991-1992 TV films), where Sherlock Holmes (played by Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
and Dr. Watson played by Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee
Patrick Macnee is an English actor, best known for his role as the secret agent John Steed in the series The Avengers.-Early life:...
are older adults continue investigating the cases — two files: Incident at Victoria Falls
Incident at Victoria Falls (1991 TV film)
Incident at Victoria Falls was the second and final film in the proposed series of television films Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years written by Bob Shayne. It starred Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee as Holmes and Watson in old age...
and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady
Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1992 TV film)
Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady was the first of two TV films made in late-1990 under the banner Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years. Harry Alan Towers was executive producer...
.
In 1991, Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
played Holmes in the Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
production of Paul Giovanni
Paul Giovanni
Paul Giovanni was an American playwright, actor, director, singer and musician. New Yorker Giovanni is best known for writing the music for the 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man...
's play The Crucifer of Blood
The Crucifer of Blood
The Crucifer of Blood is a play by Paul Giovanni that is adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle story The Sign of the Four. It depicts the character Irene St...
.
In 2000 the telemovie Murder Rooms featured Ian Richardson
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson CBE was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's House of Cards trilogy. He was also a leading Shakespearean stage actor....
as Dr. Joseph Bell, who solved (fictional) crimes with the aid of his young pupil Arthur Conan Doyle. Four more telemovies followed in 2001. The series was subtitled "The Dark Origins of Sherlock Holmes" for US syndication.
From 2000 to 2002, Muse Entertainment Enterprises
Muse Entertainment Enterprises
Founded in 1998, Muse Entertainment is a Canadian producer of films and television programs. Muse Entertainment produces dramatic series, television films, mini-series for family programs....
produced four television films for the Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Channel
The Hallmark Channel is a cable television network that broadcasts across the United States. Their programming includes a mix of television movies/miniseries, syndicated series, and lifestyle shows that are appropriate for the whole family...
, starring Matt Frewer
Matt Frewer
Matthew "Matt" Frewer is a Canadian American stage, TV and film actor. Acting since 1983, he is known for portraying the 1980s icon Max Headroom and the retired villain Moloch in the film adaptation of Watchmen.-Life and career:...
as Holmes and Kenneth Welsh
Kenneth Welsh
Kenneth Welsh, CM is a Canadian film and television actor . He is known to Twin Peaks fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and has more recently played the father of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.In 1984 he was nominated for a Genie Award as Best Actor for his...
as Dr Watson, in The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000 film)
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a Canadian television film directed by Rodney Gibbons and starring Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh. The movie is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.-Production:...
(2000), The Royal Scandal (2001), The Sign of Four
The Sign of Four (2001 film)
The Sign of Four is an Canadian television film directed by Rodney Gibbons and starring Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh. The movie is based on Arthur Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes story.-Production:...
(2001) and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire
The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire is a non-canonical Sherlock Holmes film utilizing an original story. The film was produced in 2002 for The Hallmark Channel as the last installment in a series of Hallmark Sherlock Holmes films.-Plot:...
(2002).
2002 saw a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002 film)
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 2002 television adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel of the same name.-Production:Produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for the BBC, it was shown on BBC One on Boxing Day, 2002. It was directed by David Attwood, and adapted by Allan Cubitt. The film stars...
featuring Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh
Richard Roxburgh is an Australian actor who has starred in many Australian films and has appeared in supporting roles in a number of Hollywood productions, usually as villains.-Early life:...
. Ian Hart
Ian Hart
Ian Hart is an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:Hart, the grandson of Irish immigrants, was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. He is one of three siblings and was brought up in a Roman Catholic family...
played Dr. Watson then and also in the 2004 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
airing of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking is a British television movie originally broadcast on BBC One in the UK on December 26, 2004. Produced by Tiger Aspect Productions, it was written by Alan Cubitt and was a sequel to the same company's adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles,...
, alternatively billed as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. An original screenplay "based on the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", this film takes place in 1902, with Dr. Watson "saving a dear friend from narcotics and boredom", this friend being an opium-addicted and increasingly weak Sherlock Holmes. Rupert Everett
Rupert Everett
Rupert James Hector Everett is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981, when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film Another Country as an openly gay student at an English public school, set in the 1930s...
plays the Great Detective.
2002 also saw the made for television
Television movie
A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...
cable movie, Case of Evil
Case of Evil
Sherlock: Case of Evil is a 2002 made-for-television movie focusing on Sherlock Holmes as a young adult in his 20s. The story noticeably departs from the style and backstory of the original material.-Plot summary:...
, about a 20-something Sherlock Holmes (James D'Arcy
James D'Arcy
-Early life:James D'Arcy was born as Simon D'Arcy and grew up in Fulham, London, with his mother, Caroline and his younger sister Charlotte. His father died when he was young. After completing his education at Christ's Hospital in 1991, he went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama...
) and a Doctor Watson who worked as an early practitioner of autopsies, on the trail of Holmes' archenemy
Archenemy
An archenemy, archfoe, archvillain or archnemesis is the principal enemy of a character in a work of fiction, often described as the hero's worst enemy .- Etymology :The word archenemy or arch-enemy originated...
, Professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
(Vincent D'Onofrio
Vincent D'Onofrio
Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio is an American actor, director, film producer, writer, and singer. Often referred to as an actor's actor, his work as a character actor has earned him the nickname of "Human Chameleon"...
).
In 2007, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
released Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars was a 2007 BBC television drama about Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, a gang of children who would occasionally help him. It was an original story by Kurti & Doyle, Produced by Andy Rowley and shot and post produced in Dublin, Ireland...
, a children's series focusing on the Baker Street Irregulars
Baker Street Irregulars
The Baker Street Irregulars are any of several different groups, all named after the original, from various Sherlock Holmes stories in which they are a gang of young street children whom Holmes often employs to aid his cases.- Original :...
and starring Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce
Jonathan Pryce, CBE is a Welsh stage and film actor and singer. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and meeting his longtime partner English actress Kate Fahy in 1974, he began his career as a stage actor in the 1970s...
as Holmes.
In 2008, the BBC announced Sherlock, a contemporary remake of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, created by Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
and Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is an English actor, screenwriter and novelist. He is best known as a member of the comedy team The League of Gentlemen, and has both written for and acted in the TV series Doctor Who and Sherlock....
. Originally commissioned as a one-off 60-minute pilot, three 90-minute episodes were ordered in 2009 and broadcast in 2010. Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Cumberbatch
Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch is an English film, television, and theatre actor. His most acclaimed roles include Stephen Hawking in the BBC drama Hawking ; William Pitt in the historical film Amazing Grace ; the protagonist Stephen Ezard in the miniseries thriller The Last Enemy ; Paul...
stars as Sherlock Holmes, with Martin Freeman
Martin Freeman
Martin John C. Freeman is an English actor. He is known for his roles as John in Love Actually, Tim Canterbury in the BBC's Golden Globe-winning comedy The Office, Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. John Watson in Sherlock and Mr. Madden...
as Doctor Watson, and Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves
Rupert Graves is an English film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for his role as DI Lestrade in the critically acclaimed television series Sherlock.-Early life:...
as Inspector Lestrade. The series has been renewed.
On 20 March 2009, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson appeared in the episode, "Trials of the Demon!" of Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Batman: The Brave and the Bold is an American animated television series based in part on the DC Comics series The Brave and the Bold which features two or more super heroes coming together to solve a crime or foil a super villain...
where Sherlock Holmes finished the magic spell to bring Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
to his time after the mob put Jason Blood a.k.a. Etrigan on the blame of "missing souls" of the women. After the rescue of Jason Blood, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Batman and Etrigan hunt for Gentleman Ghost
Gentleman Ghost
Gentleman Ghost is a fictional character, a supervillain published by DC Comics publications. He first appeared in Flash Comics #88 , and was created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert.-Fictional character biography:...
who was responsibility for missing souls. At first, Dr. Watson suggests that maybe James Moriarty is responsible. Sherlock was voiced by Ian Buchanan
Ian Buchanan
Ian Buchanan is a Scottish television actor who appeared on the soap opera All My Children as Dr. Greg Madden.His first major work in the United States was playing the characters Duke Lavery on the soap General Hospital from 1986 to 1989, and Ian McFyfer in series three and four of the comedy...
and Watson was voiced by Jim Piddock
Jim Piddock
James Anthony "Jim" Piddock is an English actor, writer, and producer who began his career on the stage in England, before emigrating to the U.S. in 1981.-Life and career:...
.
On 7 October 2010, a Japanese anime began airing called "Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
Tantei Opera Milky Holmes
is a media franchise owned by the Japanese trading card game company Bushiroad. It consists of an Internet radio drama, released in December 2009; an anime adaptation by J.C.Staff, the first season of which aired between October 7, 2010 and December 23, 2010; a manga adaptation serialized in Comp...
" about a girl named Sherlock "Sherly" Holmes and her 3 friends, who are based on other famous detectives, and how they retrieve their toys, or special powers, as they attend a detective academy. The anime has spawned a video game, trading card game, and a manga.
Board game
Sherlock Holmes and his world are on board gameBoard game
A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
s
- Sherlock Holmes Consulting DetectiveSherlock Holmes Consulting DetectiveSherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is a book-based game published by Sleuth Publications in 1981. A deluxe edition was released in a leatherette binder; the game was also published in a more traditional boxed version. In 1985, it won the Spiel des Jahres award.Although often thought of as a...
(1981) (Sleuth Publications) (book-based game) - 221B Baker Street221B Baker Street (board game)221B Baker Street: The Master Detective Game is a board game based on Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and developed by Gibsons Games in 1975 and sold by the John H. Hansen Co. in the US since 1977. The players have to solve cases using the clues provided by visiting...
(Gibsons Games)
Video games
Sherlock Holmes and his world are also used in video game universe as computer games and video games.- SherlockSherlock (video game)Sherlock is a 1984 text adventure developed under the lead of Philip Mitchell by Beam Software. It was published by Melbourne House. Five programmers worked for 18 months on the title and a Sherlock Holmes expert was employed full-time for a year to advise the team on accuracy.Technically, the...
(1984) (Philip Mitchell) (PC text adventure) - 221B Baker Street (1987) (DatasoftDatasoftDatasoft, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher founded in 1980 by Pat Ketchum. Based out of Chatsworth, California, Datasoft ported games from arcade systems to personal computers and acquired licenses for games from famous movies and TV shows....
) (PC and Mac) - Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown JewelsSherlock: The Riddle of the Crown JewelsSherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels is an interactive fiction computer game designed by Bob Bates and published by Infocom in 1988. Like most titles Infocom produced, the use of ZIL made it possible to release the game simultaneously for many popular computer platforms, including the Apple II,...
(1988) (InfocomInfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
) - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting DetectiveSherlock Holmes: Consulting DetectiveSherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is a full motion video based video game predicated on a book-based game of the same name. It was first developed by ICOM Simulations for the FM Towns computer and later ported to DOS, Apple Macintosh, Commodore CDTV, TurboGrafx-CD and Sega CD with all versions...
(1991) (ICOM SimulationsICOM SimulationsICOM Simulations was a software company based in Wheeling, Illinois. It is best known for creating the MacVenture series of adventure games including Shadowgate.Following the foundation in 1983 a number of game titles for the Panasonic JR-200 were produced...
) - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. IISherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. IISherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II is the title of a full motion video computer game released for the Sega CD, TurboGrafx-CD, and DOS...
(1992) (ICOM Simulations) - Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. IIISherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. IIISherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. III is the title of a full motion video computer game released for the DOS. The game is a sequel to Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol...
(1993) (ICOM Simulations) - The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Serrated ScalpelThe Lost Files of Sherlock HolmesThe Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes is an adventure game series developed by Mythos Software and published by the American computer game company Electronic Arts for DOS in the 1990s...
(1992) (Electronic ArtsElectronic ArtsElectronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
) (PC) - The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes: The Case of the Rose TattooThe Lost Files of Sherlock HolmesThe Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes is an adventure game series developed by Mythos Software and published by the American computer game company Electronic Arts for DOS in the 1990s...
(1996) (Electronic Arts) (PC) - Sherlock Holmes seriesAdventures of Sherlock Holmes seriesThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series is a series of adventure games, developed by the independent game development studio Frogwares, based on Arthur Conan Doyle's famous work The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, featuring the famous detective and his companion Dr. John H. Watson. To date, five...
: (FrogwaresFrogwaresFrogwares is an independent adventure game development studio, having branches in Ukraine, Ireland and France. Its president is Waël Amr.It is best known for its ongoing Sherlock Holmes series of adventure computer games starring Sherlock Holmes and Dr...
) (PC)- Sherlock Holmes: Mystery of the Mummy (2002) (Frogwares) (PC)
- Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver EarringSherlock Holmes: Secret of the Silver EarringSherlock Holmes: The Case of the Silver Earring is a computer game developed by Frogwares and published in 2004 on two CD-ROMs for Microsoft Windows by Digital Jesters in Europe and Ubisoft in North America...
(2004) (Frogwares) (PC) - Sherlock Holmes: The AwakenedSherlock Holmes: The AwakenedSherlock Holmes: The Awakened is an adventure game developed by Frogwares and published in 2006 for Microsoft Windows. The game follows an original plotline as Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. John H...
(2006) (Frogwares) (PC) - Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène LupinSherlock Holmes versus Arsène LupinSherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin is an adventure game, developed by the game development studio Frogwares. The fourth game in the Adventure of Sherlock Holmes series of adventure games developed by Frogwares, it was released in the October of 2007 and is published by Focus Home Interactive...
(2007) (Frogwares) (PC) - Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet (Frogwares) (PC)
- Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the RipperSherlock Holmes vs. Jack the RipperSherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper is an adventure game for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, developed by Frogwares. It is the fifth game in the Sherlock Holmes series of adventure games developed by Frogwares...
(2009) (Frogwares) (PC)(X360)
Additionally, Sherlock Holmes was spoofed in the Lozenge and Hampshire
Lozenge and Hampshire
Lozenge and Hampshire is a browser-based adventure game series for all ages.The game series was created by James Evans and is hosted at the site http://thrib.comyr.com/lozenge/ .-Series Description:...
online adventure game series by James Evans.
Internet
In January 2004, the BBC posted five new Sherlock Holmes short stories on their "Cult" website, along with RealAudio files of the stories, as read by Andrew SachsAndrew Sachs
Andrew Sachs is a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and is best known for his portrayals of Manuel in Fawlty Towers, a role for which he was BAFTA-nominated, and Ramsay Clegg in Coronation Street.-Early life:Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina , a...
and Hannah Gordon
Hannah Gordon
Hannah Cambell Grant Gordon is a Scottish actress who is well known in the United Kingdom for her television work, including Upstairs, Downstairs, Telford's Change, My Wife Next Door, Joint Account and an appearance in the final episode of One Foot in the Grave.-Early life:Gordon was born in...
. The audio productions were done in association with BBC 7
BBC 7
BBC Radio 4 Extra, formerly known as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 7, is a British digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and children's programming nationally 24 hours a day. It is the principal broadcasting outlet for the BBC's archive of spoken-word entertainment...
, but are no longer available. The texts of all five short stories are still posted, with accompanying illustrations and illustration galleries, as well as an edited transcript of an interview with Bert Coules
Bert Coules
Bert Coules is an English writer, mainly for the BBC, who has produced a number of adaptations and original works. He works mainly in radio drama but also writes for TV and the stage.-Early years:...
. The short story texts can also be downloaded as eBooks in three different formats.
External links
- BBC Cult Page for five original Sherlock Holmes short stories, posted in January 2004.
- "Brief and Incomplete History of Sherlock Holmes on TV" by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London.
- The Russian TV films
- Open audio collection of various Radio broadcasts (archive.org)
- The Secret of Sherlock Holmes Opens at Londons Duchess Theatre July 20