Sherlock Holmes

Rejoice, Doc Martin fans! We may not have a new season of the uber popular Britcom to look forward to just yet, but you’ll still be able to get your Martin Clunes fix on public television this year. And, if you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes as well, then this is probably your version of Christmas.

During its bi-annual spin through upcoming programmng known as the Television Critics Association Press Tour, PBS and Masterpiece announced a few new titles coming our way later this year, one of which happens to be the intriguing period mystery series called Arthur and George. Clunes, as it happens, plays the titular Arthur, otherwise known to the masses as Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Rejoice, Sherlockians of the world – there’s been a rather amazing discovery in the world of Sherlock Holmes over the past week. A nearly 100 year-old silent film version of the great detective has been discovered in the vaults of the Cinémathèque Française, the Paris-based archive that houses one of the world’s biggest film collections.

Entiltled Sherlock Holmes, the film stars the well known American actor-manager William Gillette and is an adaptation of the play that Gillette was famously associated with. This play – and subsequently the film – is something of an amalgamation of elements featured in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, including A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, The Boscombe Valley Mystery and The Greek Interpreter.

The supposedly lost film was uncovered while staff were working on an ongoing project to catalogue the 80,000 boxes of nitrate films in its collection. It had previously been catalogued incompletely and mistakenly put with other Holmes films.

For being a fictional character and all, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective Sherlock Holmes sure does seem to be involved with a lot of real-world records and record attempts. Holmes already holds the Guinness World Record for most frequently portrayed literary human character in television and film – note the human quantifier because otherwise he’d lose out to Dracula – and has now been involved in a very different sort of record in Yorkshire, of a slightly greater order of magnitude.

A group of fans in Leeds decided to attempt to gather the most Sherlock Holmes-es in one place at the same time, in order to break the world record for doing so (you get a cookie if you would have ever even guessed there was a world record for that) and, more importantly, to raise money for the Yorkshire Brain Research Centre at St. James’s Hospital, Leeds.

And so, that’s how over four hundred people turned up in nearby Temple Newsam to participate on August 31, dressed in their best deerstalkers and scarves, and armed with pipes, magnifying glasses and violins.

Sherlock Holmes currently holds the Guinness World Record for most frequently portrayed fictional character in film or television – over 70 actors have taken on the role of the world’s greatest detective, from Basil Rathbone to Jeremy Brett to Michael Caine to Benedict Cumberbatch.

There are currently two contemporary television properties (Sherlock, Elementary) and a feature film series (starring Robert Downey, Jr.) focused on the character, but we’re about to add yet another Holmes adaptation to the list – a big screen adaptation called Mr. Holmes directed by Bill Condon (known most recently for his work on The Fifth Estate and several of the Twilight films) has just gone into production.

The movie will offer a slightly different take on the tale of the great detective –and will be set during the twilight of his life, as he battles old age, dementia and a growing obsession with an unsolved case. The great Sir Ian McKellen is set to play Holmes – yes, get the screaming out of your system now; it is perfect casting – as he grapples with the diminishing powers of his singular mind.

Filming officially gets under way this month, and we now have our first look at McKellen as Holmes (though there doesn’t appear to be a deerstalker in sight, sadly).

Take a look for yourselves below.

Now that we’re all back to our regularly scheduled programming of waiting for new Sherlock episodes following the conclusion of eries 3, the natural progression of life as a Sherlockian is to start looking for interesting Holmes-related things to pass the time until we get to Series 4.

And this is certainly one of the more interesting Holmes-related things we’ve seen in a while.

Would you visit Sherlock Holmes: The Amusement Park? Because that’s something that’s actually in the works right now. No, really. That’s not a typo.

From blood to ballistics to fingerprints, Sherlock Holmes was 120 years ahead of his time. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective is still infamous today for the rigorous nature of his investigative methods, protecting crime scenes from contamination, looking for minute traces of evidence and searching for what the eye couldn’t see.

Two-hour documentary How Sherlock Changed the World is set to premiere on this December and will explore the real-world impact of history’s most famous fictional detective, including his effect on the continued development of forensic and investigative procedures, even during the present day. The film will feature noted forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee, who is often referred to as something of a modern-day Holmes himself.

Here’s a treat for Sherlock fans everywhere who are chomping at the bit to get to January 19 and the Series 3 premiere. Though sadly, neither Benedict Cumberbatch nor Martin Freeman are involved. But, if you enjoy Sherlock Holmes at all, you’ll probably be quite interested to see this new special. It sounds fascinating.

A new two-hour documentary will air this December, called How Sherlock Changed the World, and will explore the real-world impact of history’s most famous fictional detective, including the effect that Holmes has had on the development of real forensic and investigative techniques, and will feature noted forensic scientist Dr. Henry Lee

Read on for details and to see a clip featuring Dr. Lee.

In casting news that’s pretty much guaranteed to make you smile – and possibly wonder why this hasn’t happened before now – its official: The great Sir Ian McKellen is set to play Sherlock Holmes. McKellen will star in the film A Slight Trick of the Mind, a story about the legendary fictional detective that’s going to be quite different from almost anything we’ve seen before.

Based on the novel of the same name by Mitch Cullin, the story focuses on Holmes when he is 93, long-retired in Sussex and living with a housekeeper and her amateur-sleuth son. Holmes becomes haunted by an unsolved case from fifty years ago, of which he can only remember fragments: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife. With the great detective’s legendary mind starting to go and without the help of his devoted sidekick Watson, it may be the toughest case of his life. Sound interesting? Read on?

CBS renewed their Sherlock Holmes adaptation Elementary for a second season this week, guaranteeing that Holmes enthusiasts everywhere will get at least one more year of the network’s genderbending adventures featuring stars Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu.

The CBS drama picked up considerable buzz at the beginning of the US Fall TV season for their decision to turn John Watson into Joan in their interpretation of the stories featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective. While the actual series hasn’t done what could be called a terribly stringent job in adhering to the Conan Doyle canon, the detective drama has nevertheless managed to gather a sizeable audience on Thursday nights.