Sherlock Holmes: The Many Faces of a Master Detective proved to be a very informative and enjoyable documentary. One unexpected pleasure from my perspective was to discover, as the credits rolled, the identity of the narrator of the programme. He was an elderly man with a very distinctive vocal style, and I wondered who it might be. I didn't guess right - it proved to be Peter Wyngarde, a truly charismatic actor who starred both in that superb film The Innocents and, in his most famous role, as Jason King in Department S. It was good to hear him again. It isn't often that an unseen narrator comes close to stealing the show, especially when it's a good show.
The programme traced the portrayal of Holmes on screen, in television and film, and this provided an excellent excuse for a lot of fun - including amusing chat about the mask worn by the dog who featured as the eponymous The Hound of the Baskervilles in the Hammer Film version of the story. Among the contributors was Mark Gatiss, whose enthusiasm for Sherlock came over very clearly. He has real insight into popular culture, ranging from ghost stories and sci-fi to the great consulting detective.
I've been a Holmes fan since I was a young boy, when I came across the Basil Rathbone films and the Douglas Wilmer TV series at much the same time. The point was made by one contributor that our favouirte Holmes tends to be the one we encountered in youth, and I certainly rate Rathbone and the less renonwned Wilmer very highly, but Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch are in their different ways also very good. Some would vote for Peter Cushing, a good actor but to my mind a notch below the top four. It was, by the way, great to see another screen veteran, Douglas Wilmer, talking very entertainingly here about his series in the Sixties.
Yet there's so much Holmes stuff out there that I realised I've missed quite a few good things over the years, including Billy Wilder's film starring Robert Stephens. Must catch up on that before too long. The mark of a good documentary is perhaps whether it makes you want to find out more about the subject, and I was delighted that this programme made it clear that there's still a lot more Holmesiana that I have yet to discover.
Thursday, 16 January 2014
Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Death in Paradise - series three - BBC TV review
Death in Paradise returned to our screens tonight as this light-hearted BBC TV cop show began its third series. More than two years ago, I reviewed the first episode of series one and gave it a cautious welcome. I watched most of the episodes of that series, and found the plots enjoyable, but I continued to find some of the humour forced. I gave series two a miss, but a number of friends told me they found the show a refreshing change from Scandinavian serial killers, and so I decided to take a look at the new series.
Because I'd not kept up with news about the show, I was completely unaware that Ben Miller was being written out as the British detective who bumbles around a lovely Caribbean island solving apparently impossible crimes. So when he turned up at a reunion of some of his chums from student days, and was stabbed to death with an ice pick before the credits rolled, I was slightly taken aback.
I soon got over my sense of loss, mind you. Miller was replaced by another bumbling but clever British cop, played by Kris Marshall. Marshall's an engaging actor,and is well equipped for the light comedy (still sometimes a bit forced, it seems to me) that is one of the ingredients of the show. Sara Martins continues to provide stunning support as the detective sergeant, and the excellent Don Warrington, who was so good in Rising Damp many years ago, plays the senior officer with his customary suavity.
Death in Paradise is a very popular show, and the high ratings demonstrate the appetite of viewers for classic whodunits, brought up to date. Here, the clues were so generously supplied that it was easy to figure out the culprit, but it's decent light entertainment, perhaps a notch or two ahead of Father Brown. I still don't regard it as a must-watch, or as in the same class as Jonathan Creek, which was funnier and cleverer, but I'm glad that it this has done well enough to give us another glimpse of the sun in the depths of winter..
Because I'd not kept up with news about the show, I was completely unaware that Ben Miller was being written out as the British detective who bumbles around a lovely Caribbean island solving apparently impossible crimes. So when he turned up at a reunion of some of his chums from student days, and was stabbed to death with an ice pick before the credits rolled, I was slightly taken aback.
I soon got over my sense of loss, mind you. Miller was replaced by another bumbling but clever British cop, played by Kris Marshall. Marshall's an engaging actor,and is well equipped for the light comedy (still sometimes a bit forced, it seems to me) that is one of the ingredients of the show. Sara Martins continues to provide stunning support as the detective sergeant, and the excellent Don Warrington, who was so good in Rising Damp many years ago, plays the senior officer with his customary suavity.
Death in Paradise is a very popular show, and the high ratings demonstrate the appetite of viewers for classic whodunits, brought up to date. Here, the clues were so generously supplied that it was easy to figure out the culprit, but it's decent light entertainment, perhaps a notch or two ahead of Father Brown. I still don't regard it as a must-watch, or as in the same class as Jonathan Creek, which was funnier and cleverer, but I'm glad that it this has done well enough to give us another glimpse of the sun in the depths of winter..
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Sherlock: His Last Vow - BBC TV review
Sherlock's third series has just come to an end with His Last Vow, but those (like me) who fear withdrawal symptoms will be cheered by news that series four and five are already on the drawing board. This particular episode, despite the title, which alludes to "His Last Bow", was mainly based on "Charles Augustus Milverton". If my hazy memory is correct, the Milverton story was the first of the Douglas Wilmer versions of the Sherlock Holmes stories that I saw on TV as a small boy back in the Sixties.
Milverton was the king of blackmailers,and his modern equivalent is newspaper magnate Charles Augustus Magnussen, played by Lars Mikkelsen - a nice touch, this, combining Nordic noir with Baker Street. Lindsay Duncan, an actor who alwasy seems slightly mysterious (in a good way, I hasten to add), was his glamorous victim, Lady Smallwood. Steven Moffat's script began brilliantly, and I loved Mycroft's complaint that Sherlock's latest escapade with cocaine wasn't the first time that his substance abuse had wreaked havoc with his parents' line-dancing.
I did, though, feel that the story faltered after Sherlock was shot. Whilst I've really enjoyed this series, evidently some have been disappointed, and for me, the stories slip when the writer(s) go overboard on the sentimentality. We had some of that in this episode, and it is reminscent of the weaker parts of Doctor Who. Perhaps if the episodes were shorter, this kind of padding could be done away with in both these great shows.
All the same, I do love the clever and witty touches that abound in Sherlock. So I was intrigued to read today that a legal challenge has reportedly been launched by Conan Doyle's heir against the use of the Sherlock Holmes character in this way. Almost all of the original stories are now out of copyright, although the position has, I gather, been complicated by trade marks that have been registered.
There's a very interesting - and I think socially important - debate to be had as to who can and should be able to use fictional characters long after the death of the original creator. One argument is that the creations are property passed down to heirs, who are entitled to the benefit of them. Some say that, just as it's reasonable to remain entitled to,say, a house inherited from one's great-grandfather, so it is only fair to be allowed to inherit and profit from the intellectual property created by one's ancestors. As a creator myself, I don't dismiss these arguments out of hand by any means, and I'm certainly not in favour of deliberately nicking the intellectual property of the living. But there is also a very powerful argument that copyright lasts long enough, and that attempts to expand upon the substantial protection it already gives when the copyright period has elapsed are not in the wider public interest, and should be discouraged. Any views, on either side of the debate, would be of interest to me. So - what do you think?
Milverton was the king of blackmailers,and his modern equivalent is newspaper magnate Charles Augustus Magnussen, played by Lars Mikkelsen - a nice touch, this, combining Nordic noir with Baker Street. Lindsay Duncan, an actor who alwasy seems slightly mysterious (in a good way, I hasten to add), was his glamorous victim, Lady Smallwood. Steven Moffat's script began brilliantly, and I loved Mycroft's complaint that Sherlock's latest escapade with cocaine wasn't the first time that his substance abuse had wreaked havoc with his parents' line-dancing.
I did, though, feel that the story faltered after Sherlock was shot. Whilst I've really enjoyed this series, evidently some have been disappointed, and for me, the stories slip when the writer(s) go overboard on the sentimentality. We had some of that in this episode, and it is reminscent of the weaker parts of Doctor Who. Perhaps if the episodes were shorter, this kind of padding could be done away with in both these great shows.
All the same, I do love the clever and witty touches that abound in Sherlock. So I was intrigued to read today that a legal challenge has reportedly been launched by Conan Doyle's heir against the use of the Sherlock Holmes character in this way. Almost all of the original stories are now out of copyright, although the position has, I gather, been complicated by trade marks that have been registered.
There's a very interesting - and I think socially important - debate to be had as to who can and should be able to use fictional characters long after the death of the original creator. One argument is that the creations are property passed down to heirs, who are entitled to the benefit of them. Some say that, just as it's reasonable to remain entitled to,say, a house inherited from one's great-grandfather, so it is only fair to be allowed to inherit and profit from the intellectual property created by one's ancestors. As a creator myself, I don't dismiss these arguments out of hand by any means, and I'm certainly not in favour of deliberately nicking the intellectual property of the living. But there is also a very powerful argument that copyright lasts long enough, and that attempts to expand upon the substantial protection it already gives when the copyright period has elapsed are not in the wider public interest, and should be discouraged. Any views, on either side of the debate, would be of interest to me. So - what do you think?
Saturday, 11 January 2014
The Bletchley Circle - ITV review
The Bletchley Circle, created and written by Guy Burt, earned acclaim on its first appearance in the schedules. I missed the whole of the first series, but have just caught up with episode one of series two. Was the praise justified? On the evidence so far, I think it was. This was a good period crime show, perhaps not of the highest calibre, but certainly very watchable.
The premise is a pleasing one. A group of women who were codebreakers at Bletchley Park during the war find themselves yearning for excitement in the austere monochrome Fifties. This story had its roots in a relationship that had flourished at Bletchley. A female codebreaker fell for a male colleague (played by Paul McGann). Years later, he is found murdered, and she is at the scene and the prime suspect. She refuses to defend herself and is tried for the crime and convicted. Even facing the death penalty, she remains silent.
Yet one of her former colleagues struggles to believe in her guilt and enlists the other women in a detective exercise that has the added factor of a race against time. Another suspect, a young girl, emerges, and by the end of this episode it seemed that a conspiracy is in play.
It was a clever idea to build on the legendary activities at Bletchley in this way, and to focus a storyline on a group of talented and determined women (with Anna Maxwell Martin, fresh from Death Comes to Pemberley,,prominent) rather than men. The Fifties setting also seems to me to be well done. Burt is a good story-teller (I gather he published his first novel at the age of 19 - wow!) and this is solid entertainment.
The premise is a pleasing one. A group of women who were codebreakers at Bletchley Park during the war find themselves yearning for excitement in the austere monochrome Fifties. This story had its roots in a relationship that had flourished at Bletchley. A female codebreaker fell for a male colleague (played by Paul McGann). Years later, he is found murdered, and she is at the scene and the prime suspect. She refuses to defend herself and is tried for the crime and convicted. Even facing the death penalty, she remains silent.
Yet one of her former colleagues struggles to believe in her guilt and enlists the other women in a detective exercise that has the added factor of a race against time. Another suspect, a young girl, emerges, and by the end of this episode it seemed that a conspiracy is in play.
It was a clever idea to build on the legendary activities at Bletchley in this way, and to focus a storyline on a group of talented and determined women (with Anna Maxwell Martin, fresh from Death Comes to Pemberley,,prominent) rather than men. The Fifties setting also seems to me to be well done. Burt is a good story-teller (I gather he published his first novel at the age of 19 - wow!) and this is solid entertainment.
Friday, 10 January 2014
Forgotten Book - A Dagger in Fleet Street
My Forgotten Book for today is R.C. Woodthorpe's second novel, A Dagger in Fleet Street, first published in 1934, and applauded at the time, but now neglected and very difficult to find. In fact, I owe my copy to a kind person who supplied it to me when all other attempts came to nothing. And, as usual with Woodthope, the book boasts a number of attractive features.
This is, like Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, a workplace mystery. Woodthorpe had set his debut novel, The Public School Murder in a fictional version of the place where he used to teach. He moved from education to journalism with the Daily Herald, which in the novel becomes the Daily Hope. And Woodthorpe's knowledge of newspaper life makes his portrayal of it more powerful and authentic than Christopher St John Sprigg's entertaining Fatality in Fleet Street, published at much the same time.
Woodthorpe is good not only at describing the nature of journalistic life, but also at capturing the uncertainty faced by working people in the aftermath of the Slump. No job was safe, and one character says, "Thank God for the National Union of Journalists." That isn't the sort of sentiment that is generally associated with Golden Age detective fiction is it? An illustration, I suggest, of how the Golden Age is frequently misunderstood. Woodthorpe's writing regularly reflected his political views. The same woman turns out to be a communist; she is portrayed positively throughout, though she is smart enough not to reveal her political views to the newspaper's proprietor, or the acting editor, who is a "petty Mussolini," and who finishes up with the titular dagger in his throat.
Woodthorpe supplies some very good lines, and sharp social comedy. The only snag is that he is obviously uninterested in his plot. He was a writer, I think, who used the detective form as a peg to hang his writing on, but he was not very good at constructing a mystery. The puzzle, involving a rather insipid and ridiculous campaign by the newspaper against a pretty young woman, is third rate at best. But I'm really glad I read th book, because it gave me an insight, albeit quite light-hearted, into life in Fleet Street at a fascinating time of our history.
This is, like Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, a workplace mystery. Woodthorpe had set his debut novel, The Public School Murder in a fictional version of the place where he used to teach. He moved from education to journalism with the Daily Herald, which in the novel becomes the Daily Hope. And Woodthorpe's knowledge of newspaper life makes his portrayal of it more powerful and authentic than Christopher St John Sprigg's entertaining Fatality in Fleet Street, published at much the same time.
Woodthorpe is good not only at describing the nature of journalistic life, but also at capturing the uncertainty faced by working people in the aftermath of the Slump. No job was safe, and one character says, "Thank God for the National Union of Journalists." That isn't the sort of sentiment that is generally associated with Golden Age detective fiction is it? An illustration, I suggest, of how the Golden Age is frequently misunderstood. Woodthorpe's writing regularly reflected his political views. The same woman turns out to be a communist; she is portrayed positively throughout, though she is smart enough not to reveal her political views to the newspaper's proprietor, or the acting editor, who is a "petty Mussolini," and who finishes up with the titular dagger in his throat.
Woodthorpe supplies some very good lines, and sharp social comedy. The only snag is that he is obviously uninterested in his plot. He was a writer, I think, who used the detective form as a peg to hang his writing on, but he was not very good at constructing a mystery. The puzzle, involving a rather insipid and ridiculous campaign by the newspaper against a pretty young woman, is third rate at best. But I'm really glad I read th book, because it gave me an insight, albeit quite light-hearted, into life in Fleet Street at a fascinating time of our history.
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Father Brown - BBC TV review (second series)
Father Brown is back. The daytime television update of G.K.Chesterton's stories featuring the little priest who is one of fiction's great detectives has returned for a second series. The first series provoked very mixed reactions. When I wrote this blog post about the show, it attracted a great many comments and also some interesting emails. In fact I received one only the other day from the widow of someone who was involved with the 70s version of the Father Brown stories starring Kenneth More.
The fact that a blog post about a relatively obscure show can prompt such discussion, some of it long after the post originally appeared, never ceases to fascinate me. In fact, that particular post is, to this day, one of the ten most visited posts to have appeared on this blog; quite notable, given that there have been about one thousand eight hundred of them.
Mark Williams returned as a Fifties version of Father Brown in an episode, The Ghost in the Machine, which was not based on one of the original stories. The mixture is very much as before - picturesque settings, multiple suspects and a sort of winsome low-budget charm. The result will again set purists' teeth on edge, but I continue to find this show a sort of guilty pleasure.
I don't care for the term 'cosy' when it is applied to detective fiction. It's often applied to books that are far from cosy. But even I must admit that there is a cosinesss about Father Brown which is part of its appeal. A good watch if you are suffering from poor health, I imagine. Undemanding but light, entertaining fare. The fact that a second series has been commissioned suggests to me that plenty of viewers enjoy it. We're not talking cutting edge crime fiction here, and the connection with Chesterton's original is (and I regret this) remote. But there's room in the world for shows like Father Brown, as well as for more ambitious projects such as Broadchurch.
The fact that a blog post about a relatively obscure show can prompt such discussion, some of it long after the post originally appeared, never ceases to fascinate me. In fact, that particular post is, to this day, one of the ten most visited posts to have appeared on this blog; quite notable, given that there have been about one thousand eight hundred of them.
Mark Williams returned as a Fifties version of Father Brown in an episode, The Ghost in the Machine, which was not based on one of the original stories. The mixture is very much as before - picturesque settings, multiple suspects and a sort of winsome low-budget charm. The result will again set purists' teeth on edge, but I continue to find this show a sort of guilty pleasure.
I don't care for the term 'cosy' when it is applied to detective fiction. It's often applied to books that are far from cosy. But even I must admit that there is a cosinesss about Father Brown which is part of its appeal. A good watch if you are suffering from poor health, I imagine. Undemanding but light, entertaining fare. The fact that a second series has been commissioned suggests to me that plenty of viewers enjoy it. We're not talking cutting edge crime fiction here, and the connection with Chesterton's original is (and I regret this) remote. But there's room in the world for shows like Father Brown, as well as for more ambitious projects such as Broadchurch.
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Gravity - film review
Like ghost stories and horror fiction, sci-fi is one of the genres I enjoy dipping into from time to time. I have published one futuristic short story, for an anthology co-edited by Maxim Jakubowski, but I certainly wouldn't describe myself as a sci-fi expert. But I was recommended to watch the new Sandra Bullock film Gravity, and I'm very glad I did.
The first thing to say about this movie is that it's the first I've ever watched in the cinema with 3D glasses, and I don't think there' s any doubt that this film, more than any other I know, benefits from being watched in 3D. The visual effects are absolutely stunning - the debris flying through space, for instance, seems to be heading right for the audience. This is not just a gimmick - it's very involving.
Sandra Bullock plays Ryan Stone, a scientist with an unhappy past, who is at work out in space with an affable colleague played by George Clooney. All is going well until news comes from Houston of an accident in space that may complicate life for the astronauts. So it proves. Soon Bullock and Clooney are the only survivors of the mission, and face a desperate race against time if they are to survive.
Sandra Bullock has a very engaging personality, but more than that, she is a terrific actor, and I doubt if she's ever performed better than in this role, which must have been very demanding. I was expecting the action in space to be inter-cut with scenes in Houston as the tension mounts. Apparently, the studio expected this too, but director Alfonso Cuaron resisted the pressure. This was an excellent judgment - the result is a very strong piece of work that benefits (as so many films, like books, do benefit) from being fairly short. I very much enjoyed Gravity. Watch it in the cinema, though, if you possibly can.
The first thing to say about this movie is that it's the first I've ever watched in the cinema with 3D glasses, and I don't think there' s any doubt that this film, more than any other I know, benefits from being watched in 3D. The visual effects are absolutely stunning - the debris flying through space, for instance, seems to be heading right for the audience. This is not just a gimmick - it's very involving.
Sandra Bullock plays Ryan Stone, a scientist with an unhappy past, who is at work out in space with an affable colleague played by George Clooney. All is going well until news comes from Houston of an accident in space that may complicate life for the astronauts. So it proves. Soon Bullock and Clooney are the only survivors of the mission, and face a desperate race against time if they are to survive.
Sandra Bullock has a very engaging personality, but more than that, she is a terrific actor, and I doubt if she's ever performed better than in this role, which must have been very demanding. I was expecting the action in space to be inter-cut with scenes in Houston as the tension mounts. Apparently, the studio expected this too, but director Alfonso Cuaron resisted the pressure. This was an excellent judgment - the result is a very strong piece of work that benefits (as so many films, like books, do benefit) from being fairly short. I very much enjoyed Gravity. Watch it in the cinema, though, if you possibly can.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
Sherlock: The Sign of Three - BBC 1 TV review
Sherlock returned in double-quick time tonight with another nicely titled episode, The Sign of Three,which saw Watson (Martin Freeman) marry Mary Morstan (his real life partner, Amanda Abbington). Much as I've enjoyed previous episodes in the series, I think this is the one I've relished most. It was crammed with good things, and above all, it was great fun. That matters, because the central point about Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories is that they were great fun, and all the best detective fiction (whatever its other virtues may be) is highly entertaining..
I love the way the writers take aspects both of the Conan Doyle stories, and detective fiction from the Golden Age, and refresh them, cleverly and wittily. Tonight, for instance, we had a "locked room" mystery, countless neat deductions, an idea borrowed from Agatha Christie (a murder committed by way of rehearsal) and a plot line founded on Dorothy L. Sayers' theory that Watson's middle name was Hamish. Great stuff.
Mark Lawson wrote a fascinating piece in The Guardian the other day, ruminating on the festive season episodes of Doctor Who and Sherlock, from the prolific and talented Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and the way that fan speculation (on blogs, for instance) seems to have influenced the writing. Like me, Lawson admires their achievements, but suggested that one risk of the writers' approach is that they cater increasingly for the more diehard series fans, rather than the typical viewer. His point is well-argued, but I think it is more persuasive in the case of Doctor Who than Sherlock. It seems to me that detective fiction tends to be more structured than sci-fi, and tends by its nature to impose rather more discipline on the writer.Much as I enjoy Doctor Who, I feel sometimes that the stories tip over into self-referential self-indulgence (and this was my feeling about the Christmas special), whereas in Sherlock, the self-indulgence which is undoubtedly present does not get in the way of the story.
Part of the cleverness of The Empty Hearse lay in the multiple solutions to the mystery of Sherlock's survival, and this device was not just a nod to fan obsessions but also, and more significantly, to the Golden Age tradition of multiple ingenious solutions to a given mystery. Anthony Berkeley was the master when it came to multiple solutions, but Agatha Christie, the excellent John Dickson Carr and others (including, in one wonderful post-modern take on the Golden Age story, "Cameron McCabe") also played games with their mysteries to great effect. Other than Jonathan Creek, I can think of no television show which has played games with the genre so often and so well as Sherlock.
I love the way the writers take aspects both of the Conan Doyle stories, and detective fiction from the Golden Age, and refresh them, cleverly and wittily. Tonight, for instance, we had a "locked room" mystery, countless neat deductions, an idea borrowed from Agatha Christie (a murder committed by way of rehearsal) and a plot line founded on Dorothy L. Sayers' theory that Watson's middle name was Hamish. Great stuff.
Mark Lawson wrote a fascinating piece in The Guardian the other day, ruminating on the festive season episodes of Doctor Who and Sherlock, from the prolific and talented Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, and the way that fan speculation (on blogs, for instance) seems to have influenced the writing. Like me, Lawson admires their achievements, but suggested that one risk of the writers' approach is that they cater increasingly for the more diehard series fans, rather than the typical viewer. His point is well-argued, but I think it is more persuasive in the case of Doctor Who than Sherlock. It seems to me that detective fiction tends to be more structured than sci-fi, and tends by its nature to impose rather more discipline on the writer.Much as I enjoy Doctor Who, I feel sometimes that the stories tip over into self-referential self-indulgence (and this was my feeling about the Christmas special), whereas in Sherlock, the self-indulgence which is undoubtedly present does not get in the way of the story.
Part of the cleverness of The Empty Hearse lay in the multiple solutions to the mystery of Sherlock's survival, and this device was not just a nod to fan obsessions but also, and more significantly, to the Golden Age tradition of multiple ingenious solutions to a given mystery. Anthony Berkeley was the master when it came to multiple solutions, but Agatha Christie, the excellent John Dickson Carr and others (including, in one wonderful post-modern take on the Golden Age story, "Cameron McCabe") also played games with their mysteries to great effect. Other than Jonathan Creek, I can think of no television show which has played games with the genre so often and so well as Sherlock.
Thursday, 2 January 2014
The Thirteenth Tale - BBC TV review
The Thirteenth Tale, a BBC adaptation of a best-seller by Diane Setterfield (which I haven't read) proved to be one of the stand-out dramas of the festive season. Screenplay by Christopher Hampton, lead roles played by Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Coleman - what could possibly go wrong with this gothic tale? Not much. I really enjoyed it.
The opening was spookily (sorry, couldn't resist it0 reminiscent of the preamble to The Tractate Middoth on Christmas Day. A woman arrives at an impressive but rather forbidding country house by an enigmatic housekeeper, and is ushered into the presence of an elderly person who is close to death but has something important to say. But from that point, the two stories diverged. Redgrave plays a famous writer who wants Coleman to write her biography. Her story proves to be compelling, but deeply disturbing.
That story is (or seems to be - I'm trying to avoid spoilers here) about twins who grow up in a strange and almost surreal environment. Ronald Knox famously urged mystery writers to exercise restraint in the use of twins as a plot device, but The Thirteenth Tale is not really a detective story, although there is a puzzle to be solved. And more importantly, there is to my mind something deeply fascinating about twins. Perhaps it's because I'm an only child that I find the nature of the twin relationship especially mysterious, yet very intriguing. The experience of being a twin is so very different from my own experience. I've never written a story about twins, but one of these days, I'd like to have a go.
If I did, I'd be very happy if it was anything like as good as The Thirteenth Tale. The weird old houses, the slightly sinister family retainers, the entrancing gardens complete with topiary, and the frequent hints that something sexually illicit was going on, all these elements were mixed skilfully by Hampton to provide first rate entertainment. A gripping story, well told.
No Forgotten Book tomorrow, by the way. But there will be a post about a good and little known Golden Age novel in a week's time.
The opening was spookily (sorry, couldn't resist it0 reminiscent of the preamble to The Tractate Middoth on Christmas Day. A woman arrives at an impressive but rather forbidding country house by an enigmatic housekeeper, and is ushered into the presence of an elderly person who is close to death but has something important to say. But from that point, the two stories diverged. Redgrave plays a famous writer who wants Coleman to write her biography. Her story proves to be compelling, but deeply disturbing.
That story is (or seems to be - I'm trying to avoid spoilers here) about twins who grow up in a strange and almost surreal environment. Ronald Knox famously urged mystery writers to exercise restraint in the use of twins as a plot device, but The Thirteenth Tale is not really a detective story, although there is a puzzle to be solved. And more importantly, there is to my mind something deeply fascinating about twins. Perhaps it's because I'm an only child that I find the nature of the twin relationship especially mysterious, yet very intriguing. The experience of being a twin is so very different from my own experience. I've never written a story about twins, but one of these days, I'd like to have a go.
If I did, I'd be very happy if it was anything like as good as The Thirteenth Tale. The weird old houses, the slightly sinister family retainers, the entrancing gardens complete with topiary, and the frequent hints that something sexually illicit was going on, all these elements were mixed skilfully by Hampton to provide first rate entertainment. A gripping story, well told.
No Forgotten Book tomorrow, by the way. But there will be a post about a good and little known Golden Age novel in a week's time.
Wednesday, 1 January 2014
Sherlock: The Empty Hearse: BBC One TV review
Sherlock returned tonight with The Empty Hearse, and Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman were in fine form, consolidating their joint reputation as one of the best, (and, many would argue, the very best), Holmes-Watson duos we have seen..The very title of this episode, The Empty Hearse, is a nice example of the wit that abounds in this series - in the canon, Holmes returns from the dead in a story called "The Empty House".
We were offered multiple solutions for Sherlock's escape from death - the kind of trickery that Anthony Berkeley, rather than Arthur Conan Doyle, delighted in. There was also, almost as a throwaway, an "impossible mystery" - how can a man disappear while travelling on a journey between two Tube stations? The ingenuity and playfulness of this episode were absolutely delightful. Mark Gatiss not only wrote the excellent script, but did his usual imperious job as Mycroft Holmes. All told, it made for a striking example of how detective fiction, old and new, can be both entertaining and enthralling when done well.
One of the highlights of the Crimefest week-end last May was a fascinating on-stage conversation led by Nev Fountain, with the creators of Sherlock, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and producer Sue Vertue. I've mentioned my admiration for Gatiss more than once on this blog, and what struck me about the conversation as a whole was the respect that Gatiss and his colleagues showed for Arthur Conan Doyle's creation.
I do not believe that Sherlock would have been half as successful if it had been written by people who did not have a genuine affection for the character and the stories. Despite updating the basic premise to the 21st century, they have stayed true, by and large, to the spirit of the originals, and when I met members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in the autumn, it was clear that they approve of the show. Rightly so, because if you are going to reinvent fiction's greatest character, this is the way to do it.
We were offered multiple solutions for Sherlock's escape from death - the kind of trickery that Anthony Berkeley, rather than Arthur Conan Doyle, delighted in. There was also, almost as a throwaway, an "impossible mystery" - how can a man disappear while travelling on a journey between two Tube stations? The ingenuity and playfulness of this episode were absolutely delightful. Mark Gatiss not only wrote the excellent script, but did his usual imperious job as Mycroft Holmes. All told, it made for a striking example of how detective fiction, old and new, can be both entertaining and enthralling when done well.
One of the highlights of the Crimefest week-end last May was a fascinating on-stage conversation led by Nev Fountain, with the creators of Sherlock, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss and producer Sue Vertue. I've mentioned my admiration for Gatiss more than once on this blog, and what struck me about the conversation as a whole was the respect that Gatiss and his colleagues showed for Arthur Conan Doyle's creation.
I do not believe that Sherlock would have been half as successful if it had been written by people who did not have a genuine affection for the character and the stories. Despite updating the basic premise to the 21st century, they have stayed true, by and large, to the spirit of the originals, and when I met members of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in the autumn, it was clear that they approve of the show. Rightly so, because if you are going to reinvent fiction's greatest character, this is the way to do it.
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