Tag Archives: jim french

“Twenty years ago Jim French — writer, actor and producer — decided to redress the decline of good popular drama on American radio: he set up Imagination Theatre to create quality series and single plays. Sherlock Holmes was only a part of it, but a very important part, and it began with The Further Adventures, a series gratifyingly reminiscent of the days when listeners tuned in every week to hear Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson. The main difference is that IT’s Watson, played by Lawrence Albert, is not only brave and loyal, but intelligent. Jim French assembled a team of writers that includes M.J. Elliott, John Hall, Matthew Booth, Gareth Tilley — and David Marcum, who has prepared this very handsome three-volume edition of French’s own splendid scripts. Jim French died in 2017, but The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes continues, with 135 programmes recorded to date. All royalties from these books will go towards the preservation of Undershaw, Conan Doyle’s former Surrey home, which now houses Stepping Stones School.”

Reviewed by The Sherlock Holmes Society of London

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is available from all good bookstores including Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA,  Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository.

“I’ve welcomed two earlier volumes of Sherlock Holmes scripts from the late Jim French’s Seattle-based company. This new collection shows that the standards of American radio’s golden age live on in Imagination Theatre. Here are fifteen plays, by authors from both sides of the pond, including Jim French, M.J. Elliott, David Marcum, John Hall, Matthew Booth and the excellent leading actors, John Patrick Lowrie and Lawrence Albert. All are exciting, suspenseful, inventive – and faithful to the spirit of the canon, thanks partly to an internal consistency with an agreed chronology. As if the quality of the scripts and the introductory material wasn’t enough, all royalties go to Stepping Stones school, housed at Conan Doyle’s former home, Undershaw.”

Imagination Theatre’s Sherlock Holmes is available from all good bookstores including The Strand Magazine, Amazon USA, Barnes and Noble USA, Amazon UK, Waterstones UK and for free shipping worldwide Book Depository. In ebook format it is in Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple iBooks (iPad/iPhone).