Fwd: Scuttlebits and bytes ...

[Max Magee]

New (old) Brett and Hardwick Episode?

In 1992, Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwick acted in a couple of short mystery episodes during an ITV "Telethon Detectives" fundraiser, The Four Oaks Mystery:

Part 1 begins with Holmes and Watson investigating a murder, unsolved because Holmes meets Moriarty in Switzerland...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4vhWGlJJE8 (Sherlock Holmes)

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewUkSqumebo (Van Der Valk, featuring an appearance by Anthony Valentine who played Raffles in the 1977 series, as well as Baron Gruner in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series)

Comedic intro to the second night: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bw3vRoXbm5U

Part 3 

Featuring Taggart, apparently this segment is lost

Intro and Part 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9ikmXD0ik (Inspector Wexford)

Here's additional context for the episodes:
https://www.sherlock-holmes-on-screens.com/post/the-four-oaks-mystery-jeremy-brett

Finally, a tidbit that was posted to Sherlock Holmes on Screens, an interesting discussion and reenactment of the trantor target pistol Holmes may have used in MUSG:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpHWnmnhl7Q

Max

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: PETER E Blau <blau...@comcast.net>
Date: Tue, Oct 31, 2023 at 2:06 PM
Subject: Scuttlebits and bytes ...
To: Hounds of the Internet <houn...@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk>, WelcomeHolmes <welcom...@groups.io>

Here's the latest issue of my monthly newsletter, both as text and as an

attachment.

 

I know that the newsletter can be difficult to read on some mailing lists,

for various reasons, most of which have to do with which mail program you

are using, and my IT department has suggested that there is no way to re-

solve those multiple issues, except (possibly) using a different browser.

 

If you subscribe to lists only for the daily digest, you may not be able to access the attachment, which also is available at web-sites:

 

Current and past issues of my newsletter are available on-line, and quite

easily readable by everyone, at <www.redcircledc.org/index.php?id=39> and

at <www.sherlocktron.com>, and (beginning in 2012) with illustrations in full color and with live URLs and e-mail addresses (thanks to the expert assistance of Randall Stock).  It's an easy way to avoid the problems encountered on the mailing lists.

 

 

Oct 23 #1                            Scuttlebutt from the Spermaceti Press

 

“Plans for the 2024 BSI Weekend” are available at the Baker Street Irregulars web-site <www.tinyurl.com/5xwau634>.  Everyone who has subscribed to “News & Updates from the BSI via E-mail” has already received the message; if you’ve not subscribed, you can sign up at <www.tinyurl.com/36jhun6u>.

 

In plenty of time for holiday hinting (or shopping), Randall Stock's annual informative nominations for the best Sherlock Holmes books/DVDs of the year goes on-line at <www.bestofsherlock.com/sherlock-gifts.htm> on Nov. 1; there also are recommendations of older Sherlockiana, all with helpful explanations of his choices.

 

Laurie R. King is celebrating the 30th anniversary of her first Mary Russell novel The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and the publication of the latest novel The Lantern’s Dance with a series of “Russell and Holmes” days to be held in Santa Cruz, Calif. (Feb. 17); Seattle, Wash. (Apr. 10); Bethesda, Md. (Apr. 25), and Nashville, Tenn. (Aug. 27), with the last three timed for Left Coast Crime, Malice Domestic, and Bouchercon.  Details and registration links for the events will be found in Laurie’s latest newsletter <www.tinyurl.com/ydjzdhzs>.

 

The book collection of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, at Christie’s in London on Sept. 28-29, set some records: a copy of the first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles signed by Conan Doyle and inscribed “I perambulated Dartmoor before I wrote this book” sold for £214,200 [$226,555] (including the buyer’s premium), setting a record for a printed book from the Canon (a copy of The Sign of Four sold for $201,600 in 2022); the most ever paid for a copy of Beeton’s Christmas Annual for 1887 was $156,000 at an auction in 2007.

 

The copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles wasn’t the most expensive book in the auction: a copy of The Great Gatsby signed by F. Scott Fitzgerald and inscribed to Harold Goldman (as “the original ‘Gatsby’ of this story”) sold for £226,800.

 

There were other Sherlockian books in the sale, including a presentation copy of the first American edition of A Study in Scarlet (1890), inscribed in 1891 “With A Conan Doyle’s kindest recollections of pleasant partnership in travel” which sold for £32,760.  You can view the catalogue of the sale at <www.tinyurl.com/mr29jkrb>.

 

This year’s Christmas card from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London features seasonally appropriate artwork by Mark Mázers.  You can order them from the Society at <www.tinyurl.com/3wwdcv92>.

 

The NewsByte web-site reported on Oct. 18 <www.tinyurl.com/wbk94ybb> that Netflix would start production in Switzerland this month on a new eight-episode series described as a blend of “Downton Abbey” and “The White Lotus”.  “Winter Palace” will tell the story of the birth of luxury winter tourism in 1899, and the cast will include Henry Pettigrew as Conan Doyle.

 

Oct 23 #2   Andrew Lycett’s The Worlds of Sherlock Holmes (London: Frances  Lincoln, 2023; 207 pp., $32.00) is an account of “the inspirations behind the world’s greatest detective.”  Author of the excellent biography Conan Doyle: The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes (2007) as well as the collection Conan Doyle’s Wide World (2020), Lycett provides an impressive and colorfully-illustrated discussion of how Holmes was created, and why he continues to fascinate each new generation of readers.  Scott Monty and Burt Wolder interviewed Lycett about the new book (and much more) at their ”I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere” blog <www.tinyurl.com/2945an94>.

 

“Sherlock Holmes Could Teach Washington about Budgeting” was the headline on Peter Coy’s lead opinion piece in the N.Y. Times on Oct. 2, according to Mike Berdan, who added, “Alas, there is not much Holmes in it, just his aphorism about eliminating the impossible.”  The headline appeared only in the print edition.

 

The U.S. Postal Service has issued a booklet of stamps showing Winter Woodland Animals, with images of a [white-tailed] deer, a rabbit, an owl, and a fox. All of them are mentioned in the Canon.  Four out of four isn’t all that bad.

 

“Things get green, slimy, and sticky with ghost photography,” according to an article in the Manitoban (Sept. 28) about an exhibit <www.tinyurl.com/nwr24xwd> at the University of Manitoba.  “The Undead Archive: 100 Years of Photographing Ghosts” is based on photographs taken by a Winnipeg doctor and nurse who were inspired by Conan Doyle’s lecture on “Proofs of Immortality” in Winnipeg a hundred years ago.

 

R. Hamilton Wright’s two-act play “Sherlock Holmes and the American Problem” was first performed in 2016; the script, published by Samuel French in 2022, is one of many Sherlockian scripts available from Concord Theatricals <www.concordtheatricals.com>.

 

“If you haven’t figured out that in every version of Sherlock Holmes ever made that sex for Sherlock is crime solving, then you’re not paying attention,” Stephen Moffat said, during an interview published in the Glasgow Guardian (Sept. 8) <www.tinyurl.com/yc7tt6fz>.

 

Howard Ostrom’s “A-Z List of Sherlock Holmes Performers” now has more than 9,000 entries (with about 20,000 images); the list is available on-line at <www.nplh.co.uk/a-z-index.html>.

 

School of Hard Knox, edited by Donna Andrews, Greg Herren, and Art Taylor (Cincinnati: Crippen and Landru, 2023; 200 pp., $47.00 cloth/$22.00 paper) is an anthology of new stories that break one (or more) of Ronald Knox’s ten commandments for crime fiction.  Daniel Stashower’s “The Forlorn Penguin” is intriguingly Sherlockian, and Peter Lovesey, in his poetic “Knox Vomica” has great fun with just about every detective in the genre.  The hardbound edition, which is signed and numbered, has a laid-in reprint of Knox’s delightful Sherlockian pastiche “The Adventure of the First Class Carriage”.  The publisher’s web-site’s a <www.tinyurl.com/9367hac7>.

 

Oct 23 #3   RR Auction in Amherst, N.H., offered on Oct. 18 an interesting (and amusing) letter <www.tinyurl.com/dyz5tpsm> written by Conan Doyle from Southsea, presumably to Jessie Drummond, a member of a family he came to know while he was a studying medicine in Edinburgh.  There are three other letters he wrote to her in Mark Samuels Lasner’s collection <www.tinyurl.com/yc27ket8>.

 

You can order (well, pre-order) a nice new Rolls Royce, for only £330,000 <www.tinyurl.com/34macj6u>; it’s quite a car.

 

Ann Kimbrough offers a new and imaginative approach to the Canon, presenting two stories as a series of text messages exchanged by Holmes, Watson, four teenagers, and other characters found in the Canon.  Sherlock & Watson Wired (Everything Novels, 2022; 143 pp. $13.99) is her adaptation of “The Devil’s Foot”, and Sherlock & Watson Re-Wired (179 pp., $13.99) does the same for “The Bruce-Partington Plans”.  It’s intriguing to find Holmes and Watson brought up to date on social media, and if want a sample of how it works, just text textsherlock to 888-391-1895.

 

The Public Domain Review recently posted on-line an interesting discussion of “modern slang, cant, and vulgar words” that one might encounter in London in 1860 <www.tinyurl.com/yedj3uxf>.

 

“The Four Oaks Mystery” featuring Jeremy Brett (Sherlock Holmes) and Edward Hardwicke (Dr. Watson) was one of four segments created for ITV’s 28-hour charity telethon that aired on July 16-17, 1992.  It’s available at YouTube <www.tinyurl.com/nwr24xwd>, kindly reported by Jennie Paton.  The other segments, all available at YouTube, featured Inspector Piet Van der Valk, Taggart, and Chief Detective Inspector Reginald Wexford; in case you want to see the solution to the mystery.

 

The September issue of the quarterly newsletter published by the Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota offers Gary Thaden’s discussion of a letter Conan Doyle wrote to Minneapolis in 1923, Philip Bergem’s report on August Derleth’s The Chronicles of Solar Pons (1973), news from and about the collections, and (most important) a multi-page tribute to Julie McKuras, who edited 92 issues of the newsletter before retiring from the editor’s chair.  Copies of the newsletter can be requested from Timothy Johnson (#15-G Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455) <john...@umn.com>.

 

In case you want to live in a Dartmoor farmhouse, there’s one available, for only £1 million <www.tinyurl.com/4x2hpnhf>.

 

David McCallum died on Sept. 25.  He began his acting career in 1953 in a BBC television series, went on to appear on stage and screen, and starred as Ilya Kuryakin in the television series “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” (1964-1968) and as the medical examiner “Ducky” Mallard in the television series “NCIS” (2003-2023); it was in a 2015 episode (“16 Years”) in that series that he revealed his participation in the Sherlock Consortium for Investigation, a secret society whose members solve cold cases.

 

Oct 23 #4  Howard Ostrom has added “Spooks!” (1953) to the list of films in which the Three Stooges are seen in Sherlockian costume, and it’s available at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2AOPwxvZU>.  The other films on the list are “Horses’ Collars” (1935), “We Want Our Mummy” (1939), and “Shivering Sherlocks” (1948).  Warning: the Three Stooges are an acquired taste now, but they were featured in 190 short comedies made by the Columbia Pictures Corp. and were highly regarded, once upon a time.

 

“New views of Peking with Vincent and Ray” (the latest entry in Ray Betzner’s “Studies in Starrett” blog) <www.tinyurl.com/2p9hybnm> is a splendid example of how much fun can be had from an accidental discovery (in this case, an archive of photographs from a trip to the Orient by Vincent Starrett and his wife in the 1930s).

 

Vincent Price’s prologues and epilogues for three more programs in Granada’s “Sherlock Holmes” television series on “Mystery” on PBS-TV have been made available at YouTube <www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEI4tYUxul0>.

 

Tim Major’s pastiche Sherlock Holmes & the Twelve Thefts of Christmas (New York: Titan, 2022; 275 pp., $19.99) is an imaginative Christmas story that involves a cunning Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler upon Holmes, and cases brought to him by Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, and Edward and Lillie Langtry.

 

The latest list (#6) from Type Punch Matrix of material from Curtis Armstrong’s collection is now on-line at <www.tinyurl.com/yckp293a>.  Unsold material from earlier lists also is on-line at <www.tinyurl.com/mr4cx2u2>.

 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 17 that Netflix is expanding its focus on games to include higher-end games that can be streamed from TVs or PCs, and that Netflix is discussing games based on ‘its Sherlock Holmes series.”  It’s not at all clear what that series might be, other than the two Robert Downey Jr. films.

 

Steve Trussel’s web-sites on detectives on stamps have long been valued by Sherlockian and Doylean philatelists, and it was sad indeed to learn from Max Magee that Steve died on June 26, 2020.  His interests were varied, as you can see from his web-site <www.trussel.com>, and it’s nice to see that his web-site and many lists will be kept on-line (although not updated) so people will be able to see how much he accomplished.

 

An Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction in London on Nov. 9-12 will include five lots of interesting props that were used in Robert Downey Jr.’s “Sherlock Holmes” films <www.tinyurl.com/3832apu5>.

 

Mark Gatiss is dramatizing Conan Doyle’s “Lot No. 249” for broadcast by BBC Two at Christmas, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter (Oct. 19) <www.tinyurl.com/55h5dhck>.  And a report at the Deadline web-site (Oct. 19) <www.tinyurl.com/4u3kv79f>, the program will star Kit Harrington (Abercrombie Smith) and Freddie Fox (Edward Bellingham).  The story was featured on Mark Jones and Paul M. Chapman’s “Doings of Doyle” podcast on Aug. 27 <www.tinyurl.com/3pr3h8y4>.

 

Oct 23 #5   James Lovegrove’s The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and

the Highgate Horrors (New York: Titan, 2023; 509 pp., $22.95) is the fourth title in his Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy.  And yes, it was a trilogy, until he found yet another Watson manuscript.  The series is of course a tribute to H. P. Lovecraft, and the new book pits Holmes and Watson against the Mi-go (the race of extraterrestrials created by Lovecraft in 1931) and offers radically new versions of some of the Canonical cases.  Lovegrove has written other more-traditional pastiches, as well as non-Sherlockian fiction, and his web-site’s at <www.jameslovegrove.com>.

 

Historian and presenter Lucy Worsley will host a BBC Two series “Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle”, according to the BBC media center (Oct. 20) <www.tinyurl.com/3e2nnwfn>.  There will be three one-hour episodes, due in December on BBC Two and PBS-TV.

 

Street art has a long history, and it includes real humor; street artist EFIX (François Xavier Donguy) has had some non-Sherlockian fun, kindly reported by Samantha Wolov <www.tinyurl.com/2p8ax248>.

 

Ann Kimbrough has launched the Sherlocki-Anns (for Sherlockians named Ann or Anne); they honor Ann Adler (the younger sister of the much more famous Irene Adler) and meet three times a year via Zoom (anyone can be an honorary member <travelswithsherlock.com/sherlocki-anns>.

 

Howard Ostrom has reported a new statue of Sherlock Holmes, at the British Antique Museum in Kamakura (Japan).  It celebrates that one-year anniversary of the opening of the museum, which features a recreation of the sitting room at 221B Baker Street.  The statue is the latest addition to Howard’s comprehensive (and nicely illustrated) essay “The World of Sherlock Holmes Statues <www.nplh.co.uk/sherlock-statues.html>.

 

Haydn Gwynne died on Oct. 20.  She began her acting career on stage in the U.K., and went on to appear in many roles on television and radio, including Miss Wenceslas in “The Great Game” (2010) in the “Sherlock” television series.

 

Col. Heeza Liar starred in a lengthy series of short live-action animated films created by Vernon Stallings during the silent-film era.  You can see him in a deerstalker in “Col. Heeza Liar, Detective” (1923) found by Howard Ostrom at <www.tinyurl.com/5n7pkz2d>.

 

American Theatre magazine’s Oct. 18 report on the 20 most-produced play-wrights of the 2023-24 season has three playwrights who have Sherlockian credits: Ken Ludwig (#2), Kate Hamill (#6), and Jeffrey Hatcher (#7); details at <www.tinyurl.com/yc8xwpvu>.

 

Kate Karlson notes a new exhibition coming up at the Groller Club in New York, Nov. 30 through Feb. 10, nicely timed for anyone who has spare time during the birthday festivities.  “Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction” <www. tinyurl.com/yansyj6j> will be on view in the Second Floor Gallery, and the Club’s at 47 East 60th Street.

 

Oct 23 #6   Many Sherlockians made a pilgrimage to Barts, where Dr. Watson first met Sherlock Holmes, but those who have visited St. Bartholomew’s Hospital may not have visited St. Bartholomew-the-Great, the nearby church; the hospital and the church are celebrating their 900th anniversaries this year, and Country Life had a nicely-illustrated article about the church (Oct. 20) <www.tinyurl.com/yxj2p7bm>.

 

“Der Mann, der Sherlock Holmes war” (1937) was one of the best Sherlockian films from Germany, readily available on-line; Jennie Paton has discovered a two-minute trailer for the film at <www.dailymotion.com/video/x8oxdge>.  The complete film (subtitled in English) is at <www.tinyurl.com/yvzyxvnz>.

 

Theatrics: Ken Ludwig’s “Baskerville” is running at the Plowright Theatre in Scunthorpe, Lincs., through Nov. 4 <www.thehospitalplayers.co.uk>.  It also is due at the Festival Stage during the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, Ala., on Apr. 15-May 12 (www.asf.net>; and at the Ron Maslin Playhouse in Kanata, Ont., May 15-25 <www.kanatatheatre.ca>. 

 

Orson Welles’ “Sherlock Holmes” radio-style production at the Tighthead Brewery in Mundelein, Ill., will have an additional performance; it’s now due on Nov. 5 and 12 <www.kirkwoodplayers.org>.

 

Eric Coble’s “Sherlock Holmes: The Baker Street Irregulars” will be perfformed at the Central Valley High School in Corvallis, Ore., on Nov. 10-18 <www.tinyurl.com/bdh4me7t>; and at the Bahadur Bhatla Theatre in Montréal, Q.C. Jan. 24-25 <www.tinyurl.com/brzhnf2s>.

 

Mark Shanahan’s “A Sherlock Carol” will be performed at the Spokane Civic Theatre in Spokane, Wash., Nov. 24-Dec. 17 <www.spokanecivictheatre.com>.  Also at the Cypress Moon Studios in Sheffield, Ala., Dec. 7-10; web-site at <www.cypressmoonstudios.org>.

 

Ken Ludwig’s “The Game’s Afoot, or Holmes for the Holidays” will be performed at the Bellingham Theatre Guild in Bellingham, Wash., Nov. 24-Dec. 10 <www.bellnghamtheatreguild.com>; and at the Olympic Theatre Arts Center in Sequim, Wash., on Dec. 1-17 <www.olympictheatrearts.org>.

 

“Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Christmas Goose (by Michael Menendian and John Weagly) will be performed at the Highview Arts Center in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 25-Dec. 3 <www.highviewartscenter.com>; it also is due at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Theater in Joliet, Ill., Dec. 15-17 <www.thejolietdramaguild.com>.

 

“Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Fallen Giant” (an opera by Evan Meier and E. M. Lewis) is scheduled at the Lincoln Studio Theater in Portland, Ore., Nov. 25-Dec. 3 <www.pdx.edu/music-theater/sherlock-holmes>; and at the State Theatre in Modesto, Calif., Jan. 13-20. <www.operamodesto.org>.

 

“Sherlock Holmes & the Opera Mystery” will be performed at the King Center for the Performing Arts in Melbourne, Fla., on Feb. 8, 2024; the web-site is at <www.kingcenter.com/events/youth-theatre>.

 

  The Spermaceti Press: Peter E. Blau, 7103 Endicott Court, Bethesda, MD

             20817-4401 (301-229-5669) <blau...@comcast.net>