Sherlock continued brilliantly this evening with The Hounds of Baskerville, second in the three episode run starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the sage of 221B Baker Street, Martin Freeman as Dr Watson, and Una Stubbs as an unlikely but appealing Mrs Hudson.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is far and away the best of the four longer Holmes stories. The idea came from a man called Fletcher Robinson (whose family business in Liverpool I've long had a happy relationship with, oddly enough) and I recall that the press once gave some publicity to a strange theory that Conan Doyle was responsible for Robinson's death. A book was supposed to be being written about it, but as far as I know, it never saw the light of day. If anyone knows otherwise, I'd be interested to hear more.
Back to Sherlock in the 21st century. Mark Gatiss used elements from the original story very cleverly. There was even a character called Fletcher. Baskerville turned out to be a sinister research centre, and the character given the name of Stapleton proved to be female. She was played by the excellent Amelia Bullimore, last seen as as a senior cop in Scott & Bailey. Sherlock's first visit to Baskerville was a marvellously funny and clever scene.
As with last week's A Scandal in Belgravia, I found the story very enjoyable - perhaps even better. I am sure many others did too, given that my post about last week's episode seems (if Blogger stats are to be believed, which I'm not sure about) to have attracted more page views than all but four of over 1300 previous posts.
6 comments:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Baskervilles-Rodger-Garrick-Steele/dp/1410772101
Pure rubbish, if you ask me.
I enjoyed this too Martin. It was a nice twist to the story and again the acting very good.
Great review, Martin. Now I'm looking forward to seeing it!
A very good episode, if not quite touching the heights of last week. I've never been that keen on the original book, largely because it is so atypical - it's more of a Gothic horror than a Holmesian whodunnit.
Having said that I thought this update was cleverly done, and I particularly loved the understated scene where Sherlock admits to John that he doesn't have friends - just the one. It says everything about their relationship, and Cumberbatch and Freeman play it beautifully without overegging it.
http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2012/01/09/sherlock-the-hounds-of-baskerville-review/
Looking forward to their return here.
Thanks for these comments. Christos - many thanks for pointing out the book - I guess that's the one I was thinking of.
Elizabeth and Patti - you have a treat in store!
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