Stream On: The best ‘Sherlock Holmes?’
There is something uncanny in Jeremy Brett’s brilliant portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.
I’ve written about Basil Rathbone’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ films, and the Sherlock TV series from Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, both of which are excellent. In 1984 Granada TV in the UK began producing the Sherlock Holmes TV series, which hews the closest to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes canon. Since seeing it on PBS back in the day, I’ve looked for it online, and found out that happily, it’s now streaming widely.
/eBay /Streaming /⭐8.7/10 /Trailer /1984-1994 /NR
“We’re only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible crime!” (Dr. Watson)
Michael Cox was the series’ first producer and the man who convinced Granada TV to create what he termed “the definitive series” of Sherlock Holmes stories, with all the meticulous planning and high production standards that that entailed. He hired Jeremy Brett for the title role, who captured perfectly the eccentric character of “the world’s first consulting detective.” Besides looking like original story illustrator Sidney Paget’s Holmes, Brett was already a fan of the stories. He even offered input to the writers when he thought the adaptations could be more faithful, and almost mystically embodied Holmes for the camera.
Fyodor Dostoevsky linked illness with extraordinary vision (Dostoevsky was an epileptic) and Jeremy Brett suffered from manic-depression, as Holmes himself apparently did. During the third season, his manic episodes, his excessive changes of mood, got worse and the workload became too much; he had a breakdown and was hospitalized and diagnosed.
Even in the first season there was something uncanny about Brett’s portrayal of Holmes. Among the other fine actors, he stood out, and owned the camera in every scene in which he appeared. He continued as Holmes after his diagnosis, but his health and appearance visibly deteriorated by the time he completed the last episodes of the series. (He said, “But darlings, the show must go on!”) He died of a heart attack in 1995, a year after the final Sherlock Holmes season. “When he began playing Holmes on British television in 1984, he thought it was ‘the most dangerous thing’ he had ever done. Because of the familiarity of the character, he worried that it would end his career. Instead, by moving into 221B Baker Street, Mr. Brett discovered his signature role” (Brett’s N.Y. Times obituary).
John Hawkesworth (Upstairs, Downstairs) wrote most of the episodes, which were extremely faithful to the stories, and the physical production is very authentic—except for the ubiquitous bright lighting, which I find more suitable to sitcoms. This was a choice meant perhaps to increase audience involvement in the stories—dim Victorian rooms were lit by windows, gas and candles. Still, money apparently was no object in bringing the period details to the screen and maybe the producers wanted to show off the impeccable details and scenery.
Holmes’ colleague Dr. Watson was played by David Burke for the first thirteen episodes and afterwards by Edward Hardwicke. Both actors avoided the hackneyed image of Holmes’ companion and biographer as a bumbling simpleton (as Nigel Bruce, bless his heart, played him in what turned out to be Holmes’ alternative universe).
And once in a while, actors (but never Brett, Burke or Hardwicke) would grab a mouthful of scenery and chew it like a dog’s bone. The overacting in these cases is so extreme that it must have been a conscious choice—maybe to invoke the dramatic stage of the day? To camouflage some of the few weaknesses in Conan Doyle’s series? Still, it doesn’t hinder my enjoyment of one of the very best adaptations of Conan Doyle’s vision ever.
Sources include The New York Times, Screen Online, Baker Street Wiki, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED).
Pete Hummers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to earn fees by linking Amazon.com and affiliate sites. This adds nothing to Amazon's prices. This column originally appeared on The Outer Banks Voice.