HomeTVRevisiting the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series in hi-def

Revisiting the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series in hi-def

The nostalgia will never die

Sherlock Holmes
Credit: Granada Television

I can’t remember why I spent my pocket money on a volume of Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete Sherlock Holmes short stories when I was ten years old. Did the illustrations draw me to this fascinating world, or was it the intriguing titles? All that I remember is that it was the late 1980s, and the hardback book weighed a tonne. Once I started to read, I was hooked. Recognising my devotion to the world of the great Edwardian/Victorian detective, my mum encouraged my reading by recording episodes of Granada’s Sherlock Holmes off the television for me, having heard that the adaptations were faithful to the source material. The first one I ever saw was ‘The Dancing Men’, which must have been part of a repeat season, as it originally aired in 1984, a few years earlier. The moment I saw Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, I was enthralled: he captured perfectly for me the image of the consulting detective that I had built up in my head from reading Conan Doyle. (This was not always the case: I read several James Bond books before seeing a single movie, and remember thinking that only Timothy Dalton cut the mustard.)

All of this happened when I was in my last year of primary school. Each week my mum would diligently set the VHS to record (as my bed time was just after nine, and the episodes didn’t finish until ten o’clock!). I’d rush home from school the next day to devour it, and see how closely it matched the stories I’d already read in my book. In my view, the series was perfect. It was a gateway into a magical world. It was the start of a lifelong obsession. I have never tired of returning to Granada’s Sherlock Holmes, even though I must have watched each episode at least a dozen times over the decades.

My love for its star, Jeremy Brett, has been a feature of my life continuously since 1988. I have been lucky enough to meet and interview many actors over the years, and if they were ever in an episode of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett, I always ask them about it. On my honeymoon in September 2015, I proudly wore a Jeremy Brett t-shirt to mark the 20th anniversary of his death. I had to remember to pack it! That’s my level of commitment…

Greg Jameson
Greg Jameson
Book editor, with an interest in cult TV.

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