The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (TV series)

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes
Format	Drama
Run time	60 to 120 minutes
Creator(s)	?
Starring	Jeremy Brett David Burke Edward Hardwicke Rosalie Williams
Channel	ITV
Production company	Granada Television
Air dates	1984 – 1994
No. of series	9 (including The Return of Sherlock Holmes, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes)
No. of episodes	41
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is the name given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by British television company Granada Television between 1984 and 1994, although only the first two series bore that title on screen. The series was broadcast on the ITV network in the UK, and starred Jeremy Brett as the famous detective, a portrayal that many consider to be the definitive screen version of Sherlock Holmes, although this is a much-disputed subject. In addition, Holmes's faithful friend and companion Dr. Watson, scrupulously portrayed as the kind of thoroughly competent sidekick Holmes would want, was played in the two Adventures series by David Burke, before he elected to leave the series to be able to spend more time with his wife and young son. He was replaced by Edward Hardwicke, who played Watson for the remainder of the run.

1 Background
2 Episodes
3 Other productions
4 External links

[edit] Background

The series was initially produced by Michael Cox, with later episodes being produced by June Wyndham Davies. It was developed for television by scriptwriter John Hawkesworth, who also wrote many of the episodes. Other writers to contribute included Jeremy Paul, T. R. Bowen and Alan Plater. A full-scale outdoor replica of Baker Street was constructed at Granada's studios in Quay Street, Manchester, which later formed a central part of the Granada Studios Tour tourist attraction, before that venue's closure in 1999.

Eric Porter as Professor Moriarty in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

In addition to Brett, Burke and Hardwicke, other regular cast members included Rosalie Williams as housekeeper Mrs Hudson and Colin Jeavons as Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Also appearing in several episodes was Charles Gray as Holmes' brother Mycroft Holmes (having played the same character in the 1976 film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), while Eric Porter portrayed Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty in the second series of Adventures.

In all, forty-one out of the sixty Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were adapted in the series, across thirty-six one-hour episodes and five feature-length specials. The series came to an end due to the death of Brett at the age of sixty-one from a heart attack in 1995. It has, however, been reported that by that stage he had already decided not to play the role of Holmes again — he had been gravely ill during the making of the final run of the series, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, and even collapsed on set during the making of one episode.

The series possibly presents the most faithful screen adaptations of many of the Holmes stories, although liberties were taken with some plotlines and characters, particularly later in the run during the 1990s episodes. For instance, Holmes is never seen wearing the traditional deerstalker and inverness cape unless he is clearly in the country, as contemporary fashion mores would have dictated. A big change was Holmes quitting his cocaine habit in the episode "The Devil's Foot," which was done at the approval of Conan Doyle's granddaughter. Nonetheless, the series has been highly praised for its star, its adherence to Doyle's original concept in the characterisation of Watson, its high production values and close attention to period detail.

As well as being broadcast by ITV in the UK, the series was popular overseas, particularly in the United States, where the episodes initially ran on PBS stations there in the Mystery! strand. Later series gained co-production funding from Boston PBS broadcaster WGBH. The shows have also been transmitted on cable television stations Disney Channel and A&E Network in the US. In the UK, the series has often been repeated on Granada Plus, ITV3 and even sold to rival broadcaster BBC Two, who ran the complete series on Saturday afternoons from 2003 to 2005. This makes the series one of the very few major in-house ITV series ever to have been subsequently shown on the BBC. In March 2006 the series returned to its original channel, now renamed ITV1, for the first time in over a decade, as part of the daytime television line-up on weekday afternoons.

The complete series has also been released on VHS and on DVD, twice on the latter medium, with the most recent 2005 release taking advantage of the digitally remastered film prints originally prepared for the BBC Two repeat run.

[edit] Episodes

Note: although all of the series bear the titles of Conan Doyle short story collections, the adaptations shown in the series do not always correspond to the stories featured in those print anthologies. The dates shown refer to the original UK airdates on the ITV network.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

1984

1985

The Copper Beeches — August 25 1985.
The Greek Interpreter — September 1 1985.
The Norwood Builder — September 8 1985.
The Resident Patient — September 15 1985.
The Red-Headed League — September 22 1985.
The Final Problem — September 29 1985.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes

1986

The Empty House — July 9 1986.
The Abbey Grange — July 16 1986.
The Musgrave Ritual — July 23 1986.
The Second Stain — July 30 1986.
The Man with the Twisted Lip — August 6 1986.
The Priory School — August 13 1986.
The Six Napoleons — August 20 1986.

1987

The Sign of Four — December 29 1987. (Feature-length episode).

1988

The Devil's Foot — April 6 1988.
Silver Blaze — April 13 1988.
Wisteria Lodge — April 20 1988.
The Bruce-Partington Plans — April 27 1988.
The Hound of the Baskervilles — August 31 1988. (Feature-length episode).

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

1991

The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax — February 21 1991.
Thor Bridge — February 28 1991.
Shoscombe Old Place — March 7 1991.
The Boscombe Valley Mystery — March 14 1991.
The Illustrious Client — March 21 1991.
The Creeping Man — March 28 1991.

1992

The Master Blackmailer — January 2 1992. (Feature-length episode; based on the short story The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton).

1993

The Last Vampyre — January 27 1993. (Feature-length episode; based on the short story The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire).
The Eligible Bachelor — February 10 & February 17 1993. (Two-part episode, sometimes shown as one feature-length episode in repeats. Based on the short story The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor).

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

1994

The Three Gables — March 7 1994.
The Dying Detective — March 14 1994.
The Golden Pince-Nez — March 21 1994. (Does not feature Edward Hardwicke as Watson, as he was busy completing work on the film Shadowlands. Instead, Charles Gray appears as Mycroft Holmes, filling Watson's role in the story).
The Red Circle — March 28 1994.
The Mazarin Stone — April 4 1994. (Also includes storyline material from The Adventure of the Three Garridebs. Jeremy Brett only appears in a cameo role as Holmes due to ill-health. In his place, Charles Gray appears again as Mycroft Holmes).
The Cardboard Box — April 11 1994.

[edit] Other productions

During 1988-89, Brett and Hardwicke appeared in the West End in the play The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, a two-hander written especially for them by the television series scriptwriter Jeremy Paul. In 1992, the pair appeared in a short mini-episode as part of The Four Oaks Mystery, shown as part of the ITV network's Telethon 92 charity telethon. This episode formed one of a four-part sequence of stories featuring the stars of four ITV detective shows of the time all separately working to solve the same mystery, broadcast at two episodes per night across one weekend. The other shows which produced mini-episodes for the special were Taggart, Van der Valk and Inspector Wexford.