News Bulletin 70

Alex Kane’s Viewer & Listener Guide:

February 25 – March 2, 2012

“You have observed, of course, said he”

Not much in the way of anything new on television, but some nice radio treats, including new adaptations of Rumpole.

As ever, if you have any snippets or extra information please let me know: alexkane221b@hotmail.co.uk

SATURDAY 25

Sherlock (BBCHD on Freeview54/ Freesat109 and Sky169/Virgin187 at 9.00pm)

Series 2, Episode 1—A Scandal in Belgravia (January 1, 2012) The dominatrix theme has already been explored in CSI and House, both of which have Holmes-connected lead characters with their own versions of Irene Adler: and the plot resembled a hodgepodge of Spooks and Hustle.

The finale was pure hokum—are we really supposed to believe that Holmes popped over to Karachi, helped Adler to escape from a terrorist group and then that he and Mycroft cooked up a story to convince Watson that she was dead—but that Sherlock was being allowed to believe she was in a witness protection scheme in America? Anyway, it has left the door open for the return of Adler at some point.

What worried me slightly was that Holmes had gone from being quirky to being downright rude—something he rarely was in the original stories. The scene of him in Buckingham Palace, in his bed sheet, was both petulant and unbelievable.

There were a couple of nice jokes along the way about Watson’s blog references to ‘The Speckled Blonde’ and ‘The Navel Treatment.’ That said, Martin Freeman’s Watson is beginning to wander too close to the territory of being a wide-eyed, open-mouthed bystander. He is in danger of becoming a Dr Who type companion.

Mark Gatiss’ Mycroft is weakly drawn and weakly acted. Mycroft is supposed to be a figure of substance, in every sense of that term, but this Mycroft is a bitchy, pedantic, lazily put together creation.

The Teahouse Detective: The Brighton Mystery (Radio4 Extra on DAB also Freeview & Freesat708/Sky0131/Virgin910 and online at 1.15pm and 3.15am)

Baroness Orczy is best remembered as the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel, but she also wrote a number of stories about armchair detective Bill Owen, who related the cases to a young journalist as they took tea at the ABC Teashop, near the Strand. The stories had first appeared in The Royal Magazine in 1901, but neither Owen nor The Royal came anywhere close to enjoying the success of Holmes or The Strand.

Anyway, this is a tight, old-fashioned entertainment with the always reliable Bernard Hepton as Owen.  It was first broadcast in 1998.

SUNDAY 26

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Freeview10/Freesat115 and Sky119/Virgin117 at 6.00am)

Season 4, Episode 2—Silver Blaze (April 13, 1988) SILV was the story which introduced me to Holmes almost 45 years ago and it remains one of my favourites. So I’m very pleased that this is a bang-on-the-money adaptation.

MONDAY 27

Lord Peter Wimsey (Radio4 Extra on Freeview/Freesat708 also Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6am, 1pm, 8pm and 1am)

Gaudy Night. First broadcast in 2005 this is a delightful adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers’1935 novel, featuring her aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Ian Carmichael was born to play the role and played him very successfully on both radio and television.

*This is episode 1/5 and will be running at the same time until Friday

Father Brown Stories (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6.30am, 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am

Andrew Sachs plays G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown in this cosy little radio series first broadcast between 1984 and 1986. He also took over as Dr. Watson (to Clive Merrison’s Holmes) after Michael Williams died.

I’m not aware of any actor who has played both Watson and Father Brown (but please let me know if I’m wrong!)—but it has reminded me that I must finally read Mark Kendrick’s Night Watch, ‘a long lost adventure in which Sherlock Holmes meets Father Brown.

*This is episode 1/5 and will be running at the same time until Friday

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky119/Virgin117 at 7.55am)

Series 5, Episode 3—Shoscombe Old Place (March 7, 1991) Yes, that is Jude Law in the role of Joe Barnes! Michael Wynne—playing Josiah Barnes—played Commissionaire Jenkins in The Mazarin Stone, the penultimate episode of the Granada series in 1994.

Book of the Week: Wilkie Collins (BBC Radio 4 —FM only—at 9.45am)

Collins’ The Moonstone, published in 1868, was described by T.S. Eliot as “the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels.” Dorothy L. Sayers was no less generous, referring to it as “probably the very finest detective story ever written.”

This is an abridged version of Peter Ackroyd’s recent biography of Collins. Ackroyd is a brilliant writer and this book was very well received by the critics. Ackroyd is a great admirer of Conan Doyle and has spoken of the “melancholy intensity and majestic cadence” of his prose, “striated with rich local detail, so that he seems effortlessly able to evoke the marvellous and the terrible in the ordinary”. He also wrote a very insightful introduction to The Sign of Four (a 2001 edition from Penguin Books).

The reader is Michael Pennington, who starred as Holmes in the 1987 TV movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes. It’s an acquired taste—a taste I have never acquired, either drunk or sober!

*This is episode 1/5 and will be running at the same time until Friday

TUESDAY 28

Lord Peter Wimsey (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6am, 1pm, 8pm and 1am) SEE MONDAY

Father Brown Stories (Radio4 Extra/Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6.30am, 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am  SEE MONDAY

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky119/Virgin117 at 8.00am and 1.00am)

Series 5, Episode 4—The Boscombe Valley Mystery (March 14, 1991) Peter Vaughn—playing Mr. Turner—was a very good Charles Augustus Milverton in the Merrison/Williams radio series and is equally good here. He’s one of our very best character actors, best known for roles in Citizen Smith, Porridge and Our Friends In The North.

James Purefoy—playing James McCarthy—had screen tested for the role of James Bond in 1995, losing out to Pierce Brosnan. He lost out again a few years later to Daniel Craig. I’m not 100% certain, but this may have been his first TV/film role.

Book of the Week: Wilkie Collins (BBC Radio 4 —FM only—at 9.45am) SEE MONDAY

WEDNESDAY 29

Lord Peter Wimsey (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6am, 1pm, 8pm and 1am) SEE MONDAY

Father Brown Stories (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6.30am, 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am  SEE MONDAY

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky119/Virgin117 at 8.05am)

Series 5, Episode 5—The Illustrious Client (March 21, 1991) Very nice—if that’s the right word in the circumstances—performance from Anthony Valentine as Baron Gruner. He had enjoyed great success in Callan, Colditz and Raffles. Raffles, of course, was written by E.W. Hornung, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law.

Book of the Week: Wilkie Collins (BBC Radio 4 —FM only—at 9.45am) SEE MONDAY

Sherlock Holmes, 2009 (Sky Showcase on Sky 303/Virgin403 at 5.45pm) While Robert Downey Jnr gives us a Holmes we have never really seen before (and I won’t complain about that) I still think this film is let down by a lousy plot, gorgonzola script and an awful lot of hamming-it-up from a cast who should know better. Guy Ritchie doesn’t seem to have understood that Holmes is a ‘thinking machine’ first and foremost.

Terror By Night (TCM on Sky317/Virgin415 at 7.50pm) released in February 1946 this was the second last of the Rathbone/Bruce series. It’s all a bit stagey—hard to avoid when set on a train—but at least it’s Holmes the detective rather than Holmes the Nazi fighter. Good performance from Alan Mowbray as a disguised Colonel Moran, “the most sinister, ruthless and diabolically clever henchman of our late and unlamented friend, Professor Moriarty.” Mowbray had also played Inspector Gore-King in “Sherlock Holmes” (1932, with Clive Brooke as Holmes) and  Inspector Lestrade in “A Study in Scarlet” (1933, with Reginald Owen as Holmes.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky 119/Virgin 117 at 7.55pm and 1.00am)

Episode 6, First Series—The Speckled Band (May 29, 1984) Another excellent dramatization from Jeremy Paul, with Jeremy Kemp in terrific form as Roylott. It’s a very easy role to turn into a sort of pantomime villain, but Kemp manages to make him a more rounded character than we know just from the short story. Rosalyn Landor, who plays Helen Stoner, is now a multi award winning narrator of audio books in America.

The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (BBC4 on Freeview9/Freesat107 also Sky116/Virgin107 at 9.00pm)

The Worsted Viper. Written by Gladys Mitchell between 1929 and 1984 the Mrs Bradley mysteries—65 in total—have never enjoyed the commercial or critical success of her contemporaries. She was actually an early member of the Detection Club, along with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers who, collectively, were often described as ‘the Big Three women detective writers of the 1930s.’ This short lived series (five episodes in 1998/99) with Diana Rigg and Neil Dudgeon was comfortably cosy stuff, but always too lightweight and quirky to work as serious detection.

THURSDAY, MARCH 1

Lord Peter Wimsey (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6am, 1pm, 8pm and 1am) SEE MONDAY

Father Brown Stories (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910
at 6.30am, 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am 
SEE MONDAY

The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky119/Virgin117 at 8.00am)

Season 5, Episode 6—The Creeping Man (March 28, 1991) I’ve always regarded this as one of the silliest stories in the entire Canon, lacking credibility, logic, plot or detection. Sarah Woodward—playing Edith Presbury—is the daughter of Edward Woodward, who has played Holmes in Hands of a Murderer.

Book of the Week: Wilkie Collins (BBC Radio 4 —FM only—at 9.45am) SEE MONDAY

Terror By Night (TCM on Sky317/Virgin415 at 11.40am) SEE WEDNESDAY

Rumpole and the Man of God (BBC Radio 4 at 2.15) New adaptation of a John Mortimer legal drama: and, as ever with Rumpole it’s lovely stuff. Nice work from Timothy West as Rumpole (although I still miss Leo McKern) and with the bonus of Benedict Cumberbatch as the young Rumpole.

Paul Temple and Steve (BBC Radio 4 at 11.00pm)   

Episode 6 of 8: Steve’s Intuition

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Temple mysteries, particularly the series that still turns up on Radio 4 Extra at regular intervals. This is a new production—first broadcast in June 2010—of the 1947 detective serial and sounds pretty good; with Crawford Logan making an excellent Temple and Gerda Stevenson splendid as his wife, Steve.  The producer, Patrick Rayner, was one of the key people behind the Merrison/Williams Sherlock Holmes complete canon for Radio 4.

FRIDAY 2

Lord Peter Wimsey (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6am, 1pm, 8pm and 1am) SEE MONDAY

Father Brown Stories (Radio4 Extra on Sky0131/Virgin910 at 6.30am, 1.30pm, 8.30pm and 1.30am  SEE MONDAY

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (ITV3 on Sky 119/Virgin 117 at 8.05am)

Episode 1, Sixth Series—The Three Gables (March 7th, 1994) Brett was quite ill when this series was made and at times his performances bordered on the manic. Indeed, by this time, a decade since the Granada series first went into production, the whole series had slowed down and lost its edge. A good turn, though, from Peter Wyngarde as Langdale Pike. And if you think that ‘Dora’ looks familiar, that’s because she’s played by Edward Hardwicke’s daughter, Emma Hardwicke.

Book of the Week: Wilkie Collins (BBC Radio 4 —FM only—at 9.45am) SEE MONDAY

Rumpole and the Explosive Evidence (BBC Radio 4 at 2.15) SEE THURSDAY

Pursuit to Algiers (TCM on Sky317/Virgin415 at 7.50pm) There is actually no mystery and no detection involved. As one critic noted at the time: “Pursuit to Algiers does nothing but keep the Sherlock Holmes franchise for Universal and lessen its value.” There isn’t even a half decent baddie to keep us occupied.