Comments on: Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Moriarty London wgah’nagl fhtagn

By: Anthony

Anthony — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:49:55 +0000

Although some people swear by Douglas Wilmer, for me the Brett Holmes is much the finest – Brett’s central performance being boosted by two excellent (non-stupid) Watsons in Burke and Hardwicke and the fact that the entire production is clearly produced with such love and care. The only problem is that it sets the bar so high it’s fairly unlikely that there’ll be any future television Holmes with which I will be satisfied.

A few brief recommendation for people looking for a further Holmes fix:

1) “A Study in Emerald” is the first story in “Shadows over Baker Street”, a Holmes/Mythos crossover volume. The entire book is worth checking out, with the caveat that Gaiman’s short story is the cleverst thing in it by a fairly wide margin.

2) The BBC has produced a series of full cast Holmes radio dramatisations, starring Clive Merrison as Holmes and the late Michael Williams (Mr Judi Dench) as Watson. They’re well worth your time, if you don’t get turned off by the radio play format. I think Merrison’s Holmes is very fine indeed; slightly snarky and put upon without going over the top. Vaguely interesting trivia – Merrison is the only actor to have starred as Holmes in dramatisations of every one of the Doyle stories, Brett having died before the canon was complete.

3) I recently read “The Last Sherlock Holmes Story” by the late Michael Dibdin (his first book) and was blown away by it. It may split opinion, though. Also, you really do need to be aware of the Holmes stories in order to get the most out of it.

4) In terms of pastiches, I’d recommend people have a look at Kim Newman’s “The Red Planet League”. Holmes doesn’t actually feature in it – it’s essentially a comedic short story in which Prof. Moriarty and Colonel Moran rampage around trying to get revenge on an astronomer who has attacked Moriarty’s “Dynamics of an Asteroid”. Another story where the enjoyment is largely contingent upon an ability to spot the references – it riffs on “The Crystal Egg”, “The War of the Worlds” and “Diary of a Nobody”. The only problem is that the book it’s in, “Gaslight Grimoire”, edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, is of very uneven quality and a lot of people may not consider it worth the cover price.

By: Hugh

Hugh — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:09:31 +0000

I think Brett’s portrayal of Holmes had a disturbingly formative effect on my character growing up. I think “The Dying Detective” may have made me start smoking. That WETA was running them on Thursday nights for the last year or so (maybe still is) has been pretty wonderful.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:26:24 +0000

I’ll confess, as someone who came up on the Brett/Hardwicke series, the Downey Holmes sounds kind of appalling. Sure, he was supposed to be an expert boxer, but it’s hard to imagine anything more pointless than turning Holmes into a generic wisecracking action hero. And I don’t think I can watch Iron Man fake a British accent for 90 minutes in any event.

By: DivisionByZero

DivisionByZero — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:26:17 +0000

I thought Cthullu had taken over your blog, Julian.

By: Glen

Glen — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:04:03 +0000

When I watched the Harry Potter movie last night, I caught a trailer for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. It looks AWESOME. But I confess, I have never read a single Holmes novel or seen a single TV show or movie about him.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:26:34 +0000

I’ve never had occasion to wear an elaborate disguise or engage in a singlestick duel, but the the enterprises are otherwise not all that different.

While I find the second half of this sentence merely surprising, Halloweens past argue that the first half is where the real problem lies.