Category Archives: The Great Sherlock Holmes Debate

Last week the world’s largest unofficial fan site for BBC’s Sherlock, Sherlockology, went live, with tens of thousands of visitors in the first 24 hours. A quick look through the site and you can see why. They have a huge amount of information about the BBC series, which enlisted an immediate response from the show’s producers within hours of the site going live.

In term’s of The Great Sherlock Holmes Debate the timing couldn’t have been better as now the team behind Sherlockology have thrown their considerably large hat in the ring and joined the BBC team. This is important for the BBC as last week we announced that I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere joined the Guy Ritchie team with their access to some of the film’s advisers.

One of the Sherlockology team commented about the debate as they joined:

“The timing is excellent with ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’ coming out in December, and the second series of BBC ‘Sherlock’ broadcasting in early 2012 – with the first episode having a press preview in early December.”

The first statement of intent came out at the weekend from award winning writer Alistair Duncan who drew the battle lines on two key issues – Fidelity (how true to the original the adaptations are) and New Fans and profile. On his Sherlockian Blog Alistair argues that the debate will be a very close run thing. Alistair is one of the world’s leading experts on Holmes and Conan Doyle. This year his book, The Norwood Author picked up the coveted 2011 Howlett Literary award (Sherlock Holmes Book of the Year). He knows his BBC Sherlock too. When the BBC contacted the London Society to suggest an expert to comment on the new adaptation, on the morning of the airing of the first episode it was Duncan that was interviewed on BBC 5 live.

What is important for the BBC team is that Sherlockology bring a depth of knowledge to the debate that is unsurpassed. From cast to wardrobe, scripts to locations, the site covers every possible aspect of the series and will help the team with the specifics. It will be interesting to see how the Films team responds this week.

Please remember the debate is supporting two important causes – Save Undershaw and BAFTA for Jeremy Brett – please check out their sites and join their pages on Facebook (Undershaw Trust on Facebook).

It’s day 6 of 56 ahead of what’s widely being tipped as the biggest Sherlock Holmes debate ever and here’s an update of how the teams are shaping up. The audience fan page is growing well too with (at time of writing) 174 people registered from over 20 countries around the world – although around half those registered so far are from the USA. The audience tickets (80) will be released in a few weeks time on the Great Debate Facebook page. Several society heavyweights, authors and a film director have joined in the first week and rumours of several celebrity Holmes fans considering jumping in will make next week quite exciting.

We’re very pleased to see some of the most followed Holmes blogs taking part. Writing weekly/daily on Holmes matters gives a real depth of opinion which will be vital. As with most genres bloggers can have huge followings. We are also looking at some strong academic participants – more news on that soon. Look out for the designation BSI (Baker Street Irregulars) as to get into the Irregulars you must have made a ‘significant contribution’ to the cause of Sherlock Holmes – you can check out their Baker Street Journal here.

So we have:

BBC’s Sherlock

Roger Johnson (BSI)  [Editor, The Sherlock Holmes Society of London journal] – UK

The Baker Street Babes [Podcast team of 11] – USA/UK

Charlotte Walters [Author, Barefoot on Baker Street, 56 Sherlock Holmes Stories in 56 days] – UK

Kate Workman [Author, Rendezvous At The Populaire, I Will Find The Answer] – USA

Dan Andriacco [Author, Baker Street Beat, No Police Like Holmes] – USA

Guy Ritchie’s Movies 

Gerry O’Hara [Director, film/tv] – UK

Jamie Mahoney [Blog – Better Holmes and Gardens] – USA

Gerry Kelly [Author – The Outstanding Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes] – UK

Larry Feldman [Founding member of The Montague Street Lodgers of Brooklyn] – USA

Kieran McMullen [ Author and military expert, Watson’s Afghan Adventure] – USA

What will week two bring?

Please remember the debate is supporting two important causes – Save Undershaw and BAFTA for Jeremy Brett – please check out their sites and join their pages on Facebook (Undershaw Trust on Facebook).

After several Holmes heavyweights joined the side of the BBC’s Sherlock, the Guy Ritchie side was looking a little light – but no more. Gerry O’Hara has worked with some of the most famous actors of all time from Laurence Olivier (Richard III) to Joan Collins (The Bitch) and has directed many Hollywood movies – including working on the Academy Award winning Tom Jones.

He’s no stranger to television either having worked on The Avengers, The Professionals, Hammer House of Horror, Cats Eyes and a host of other programmes. He’s a record breaker too. He wrote the adaptation of the book Operation Julie which was the first adaptation to play across three consecutive nights on British TV and drew a record 13 million viewers.

Talking with his agent, Tom Evans, we tried to find out why he’s joined the side of Guy Ritchie. Tom is careful to not to reveal too much, but lets just say that there are some similarities between Guy and (a younger) Gerry that clinched it.

We’re working hard at getting an interview with Gerry but he’s hard to track down and for now we’ll settle for him committing to being on the team. Gerry’s own Holmes adaptation comes out in book form soon-  ‘Sherlock Holmes and The Affair In Transylvania’ – with a film adaptation in the offing.

So the teams are lining up nicely. We’ve had several more approaches today which we are working through and will have more news over the weekend.

Please remember the debate is supporting two important causes – Save Undershaw and BAFTA for Jeremy Brett – please check out their sites and join their pages on Facebook (Undershaw Trust on Facebook).