Amateur Holmesian Scholarship

Film, Book and Stage News

The new Sherlock Holmes film hasn’t even opened yet and already, it’s reported, Guy Ritchie is working on a sequel. The Brad Pitt as Moriarty rumour is once again doing the rounds with The Hollywood Reporter reporting that he’s actually in discussions to play him in the sequel so might actually crop up at the end of the first film in a cameo. Risky Business claims that Kieran and Michele Mulroney are to take over script writing duties. Worth mentioning that the movie marketing has gone viral, which seems to be a pretty common thing these days – the website can be found here and since this is a Holmes blog I am not going to tell you the password, you can work it out for yourselves (however, if you get stuck the clue is that is a most remarkable woman).

There is actually another Holmes film being made, this one with a more steampunky line with Holmes having to face a giant monster attacking London (in my head it’s Sherlock Holmes meets Cloverfield, which I’m sure is not the intention but it’s a fairly amusing image!) Gareth David-Lloyd (of Torchwood fame) is playing Dr Watson, whilst Ben Synder plays Holmes, other cast members include Dominic Keating (of ‘Enterprise’ fame but don’t hold that against him). Check out the production stills from Aslyum Films, they look like good fun. I wonder if this is the steampunk Holmes script I was told about a few months back. Ummm.

After the success of other more science-fictiony Holmes anthologies, there is another one on the way! Entitled ‘The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ most of the stories are reprints, but it’s a chance for you to read stories by Stephen King, Vonda N. McIntyre, Anthony Burgess, Stephen Baxter, Laurie  R. King and Neil Gaiman’s ‘Study in Emerald’ (amongst other authors – table of contents can be found here). Amazon have it for £10.79 but it’s worth noting that you can find it cheaper.

Remember me reporting that there were at least two Holmes productions on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? I was e-mailed a link to a review of ‘Broken Holmes‘ which achieved four stars in the Fringe Review. Excellent news for the company involved! I’m assuming slightly that there will be a review of the other Holmes production somewhere on the Fringe Review website, feel free to find it. (Sorry, being a bit lazy I know but hey, this is my blog )

Conan Doyle News

Oh dear, it seems that the Scottish MPs aren’t overly happy with the fact Portsmouth was given Richard Lancelyn Green’s collection of Conan Doyle papers/photographs/general memorabilia. Robin Harper, the chairman of the Scottish parliament is claiming that most of the collection isn’t on public show and that Portsmouth doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, and wants to open negotiations to get the collection.

“It is clear that Portsmouth is having a very difficult time handling this collection,” he said. “It seems that it is unlikely to be properly and fully on show in the near future, if at all. If it is not prepared to properly catalogue and display the collection, then Scotland and Edinburgh should be given the chance, and I am sure we will happily accept. In terms of expertise and capacity, there is no comparison between what Edinburgh and Portsmouth have to offer.”

Portsmouth has no intention of giving up without a fight though.

On the topic of Conan Doyle, the Edinburgh College of Parapsychology have made an ‘exciting’ discovery during a clear out. They’ve found a Victorian-era ouija board with an outside chance that it might have been used by Conan Doyle himself! Dear me, you have to love the parapsychology field, they are known for clutching at straws .

Did you know that the first films shown on airplane was none other than the 1952 version of ‘The Lost World’? Twelve people had the privilege on board a Handley Page aircraft circling over Croydon airport in April 1952. The Times original report on the event can be found here, thanks to the Times online archive.

Pastiche

I was sent a link to this Holmes parody, but I’m afraid I can’t remember why it was sent to me (other than it being an early Holmes parody) so I shall leave that it up yourselves to judge. ‘The Stolen Cigar Case‘ by Bret Harte, published 1902. The website it’s from lists other Holmes parodies from the ‘gaslight era’ and has links to many of them up on it’s website, check it out.

Finally, in something that tickled me, a livejournal user has made a little comic titled ‘The Case of Two Watson’s‘ parodying the popular bumbling image that people have of Watson, alongside the ‘real’ Watson.

Probably the best Holmes adaptation appeared on BBC radio (see they can do something with the licence fee than leave rude answering machine messages!), staring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams as Holmes and Watson.

One of the great things about the series was the writing talents of Bert Coules. As well as penning some of the adaptations he went on to create some superb pastiches for the radio under the title ‘The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ still staring Clive Merrison but with Andrew Sachs replacing the sadly deceased Michael Williams as Watson.

Two series’s of ‘The Further Adventures…’ were created and recently Coules announced that there was going to be a third on the way with the 26th December 2008 being the first broadcast date. There will be four more stories and BBC Worldwide plans to release a four-disc box-set of the entire series, including two previously unreleased stories from series 1 & 2.

Philip Franks (who I love) and Peter Egan are starting another tour of their very successful ‘Hound of the Baskervilles‘ play, so far there have been no central London dates announced but I do hope they return as I would very much like to see their play having missed it the first time round. The play is adapted by Clive Francis and directed by the incredibly talented Robin Herford (‘The Woman in Black’).