HomeTVRevisiting the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series in hi-def

Revisiting the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes series in hi-def

The ‘Casebook’ and ‘Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’ are better than they are given credit for

Credit: Granada Television

Having levelled criticisms against the feature-length episodes, I should perhaps say that it was not all diminishing returns for the series in the 1990s, after it had maintained a consistently and almost impossibly high standard throughout the 1980s. ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’ from 1991 is a solid, if slightly less remarkable block of six episodes compared to the sheer majesty of what had come before it. The high point is undoubtedly ‘The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax’, which was directed by soon-to-be Oscar-winner John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), and set in the beautiful Lake District. In that story, Sherlock Holmes comes perilously close to failing. He solves the crime, but is too late to save the victim from the after-effects of the horrifying consequences of her ordeal. We see Holmes at his most vulnerable and human. By this time, Jeremy Brett’s health was failing, and he visibly declined sharply over only a few short years. By 1994’s ‘The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’, he looks unwell and is struggling for breath. In high definition, you can see the make-up on his face and lips intended to give him some colour. Brett gave everything, including his failing health, to the show, and battled through in order to keep working and give fans a handful of further adventures. It is in that context that ‘The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes’ must be seen. Ever a superb actor, Brett rounds Holmes into an older, more wistful character, suited to his increasing incapacity. Where a decade earlier, Holmes had scampered on the floor looking for clues, he is, by this time, altogether more sedentary and morose. He even disappears in ‘The Mazarin Stone’, allowing his brother Mycroft to step in and solve the mystery of the stolen diamond. It was to give Brett time off from a punishing filming schedule that he was struggling to complete. Although the opening episode of ‘The Memoirs’, ‘The Three Gables’, is unusual, in that it’s not really a mystery, it is stylishly filmed. Director Peter Hammond commits wholeheartedly for the angle of Victorian melodrama. Brett’s reaction to finding a locket with a painting of a woman whose eyes have been scratched out, even for melodrama, is a touch large, and perhaps a sign that the actor was too ill to go for another take. Yet the very next episode, ‘The Dying Detective’, features Brett back to his spine-tingling best. His performance as a feverish Holmes, suffering cramps and calling out for help is masterful. The steely look in his eyes as he rises from his ‘deathbed’ to light a cigarette is breathtakingly good. The episode is a high-point of the season. I adore the final episode, set at Christmastime – ‘The Cardboard Box’ (also directed with cinematic flair by Sarah Hellings). Holmes’ final moralising, as the gruesome mystery is solved, is poignant in more ways that one. It is the last we will ever see of these wonderful actors playing characters we have grown to love so dearly. A year and a half after the episode originally aired in the UK, Jeremy Brett would sadly die from a heart attack, aged 61. His passing was the first, and so far only time I have wept for a celebrity, and someone I never personally knew. Tragically, his premature death came shortly after he had enjoyed something of a return to health, where he lost the water retention that was so visible in ‘Memoirs’, and he was back to his customary lean frame, as you can see in this video. It is hard to watch that final episode now, brilliant though it is, without a lump in the throat. Thank you, Jeremy, wherever you are, for soldiering on and giving us those final six episodes, two of which are among the very best in the series’ entire run. We’ll always love you!

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

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