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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 27, 2017 12:12:32 GMT
The Unopened Casebook radio episodes were released not so long ago on CD. They're good fun, with enjoyable performances from Simon Callow and Nicky Henson as Holmes and Watson, and a nicely melodramatic atmosphere. The same author wrote a later series of Holmes pastiches which were read for the BBC by an up and coming young actor named Benedict Cumberbatch - who must have recorded them just before Sherlock catapulted him to international fame. Ah, that's interesting to learn. Appreciate the tip. I strongly suspect however that I would find it as difficult to listen to a radio Holmes that didn't have the voice of Clive Merrison as I do to watch a tv incarnation that isn't Jeremy Brett. Apropos of nothing in particular; I found myself walking past Simon Callow on a London street the other week not once but twice and several hours apart too. He must have begun to wonder if I was stalking him. I saw Simon Callow once, in a basement in London. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 28, 2017 12:11:05 GMT
Ah, that's interesting to learn. Appreciate the tip. I strongly suspect however that I would find it as difficult to listen to a radio Holmes that didn't have the voice of Clive Merrison as I do to watch a tv incarnation that isn't Jeremy Brett. Apropos of nothing in particular; I found myself walking past Simon Callow on a London street the other week not once but twice and several hours apart too. He must have begun to wonder if I was stalking him. I saw Simon Callow once, in a basement in London. By this I meant that I saw Simon Callow in the basement of a bookshop in London. |
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Oct 3, 2017 10:24:09 GMT
Currently on YouTube (and probably available for several weeks) - the broadcast-length version of my Imagination Theatre radio series' Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes episode The Voice in the Smoke, starring John Patrick Lowrie and Larry Albert as Holmes and Watson. There was an extended 'feature-length' version released on CD at one point, but this is the 50 minute edit that aired originally in September 2009. An apt tale for the lead up to Hallowe'en, I suppose, as seances, spirits and cemeteries loom large in the case... www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE34pOTp2Co |
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Post by ripper on Dec 30, 2017 10:56:51 GMT
Ah, that's interesting to learn. Appreciate the tip. I strongly suspect however that I would find it as difficult to listen to a radio Holmes that didn't have the voice of Clive Merrison as I do to watch a tv incarnation that isn't Jeremy Brett. It's very different from the wonderful Clive Merrison series, that's for sure. It reminded me more of the old Rathbone and Bruce radio series - partly due to the use of organ music for stings and links, giving it an 'old time' feel - though without Watson waffling on incessantly about the merits of their sponsor, Petrie Wine. (I was frequently tempted to write an Imagination Theatre Holmes radio script with the sleuths hearing a dismal moan of horror that leads them to a client, with Watson pointing out that 'We were brought to you by a petrified whine.' Luckily a sliver of self respect prevented me actually doing so.) Bert Coules, originator and chief adapter for the Merrison and Williams series and creator of the Merrison and Sachs series wrote a fascinating book on the series titled 221 BBC. It's a book I go back to regularly, as someone interested in Holmes and Watson, in their history on radio, and in the writing and adaptation process and details of the production itself. www.wessexpress.com/html/221bbc.htmlI would agree that the BBC Clive Merrison series is the best radio version of the canon. However, I do get a kick out of the Rathbone/Bruce series, and there are some macabre elements in some of the non-canon episodes. It always amuses me that in the Rathbone/Bruce series, which was made in the 1940s, that Watson will introduce that week's story as having taken place in, say, 1895, making him in his nineties or older. |
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Post by dem on Jul 23, 2018 18:37:29 GMT
Picked this up at yesterday's market, yet another Ripper title published to coincide with the centenary "celebrations." The blurb suggests it's played for laughs. Anyone read it (or others in same series)? M. J. Trow - Lestrade and the Ripper (MacMillan, 1988) Blurb: In the year 1888 London was horrified by a series of brutal killings. All the victims were discovered in the same district,Whitechapel, and they were all prostitutes. But they were not the only murders to perplex the brains of Scotland Yard. In Brighton, the body of one Edmund Gurney was also found.
Foremost amongst the Yards top men was the young inspector Sholto Lestrade and it was to his lot that the unsolved cases of a deceased colleague fell. Cases that included the murder of Martha Tabram, formerly a prostitute from Whitechapel. and that of the aforementioned Gurney.
Leaving no stone unturned, Lestrade investigates with his customary expertise and follows the trail to Nottinghamshire, to the minor public school, Rhadegund Hall. It is his intention to question the Reverend Algernon Spooner. What he finds is murder.
As the Whitechapel murders increase in number, so do those at Rhadegund Hall, and so do the clues. What is the connection between them all ? As it it weren't confusing enough, Lestrade is hampered by the parallel investigations of that great detective, Sherlock Holmes, aided by Doctor Watson. Who is the murderer of Rhadegund Hall and are he and the man they call 'Jack the Ripper' one and the same?
ln the centenary year of the Ripper case M J Trow takes an ingenious look at the murders and the task that Scotland Yard faced. Full of his customary tongue- in-cheek humour and with an eye for the historic detail of nineteenth - century England, Lestrade and the Ripper is a worthy successor to Lestrade and the Leviathan and Lestrade and the Brother of Death. |
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Post by andydecker on Jul 23, 2018 21:26:26 GMT
I bought a compilation of three translated novels a long time ago, but couldn't get into it. I like my dose of Holmes now and then, but wasn't too keen of another parody. If my memory is correct, the cases are taken earnest, just with Lestrade a capable copper instead of Doyle's punchback.
The German editions had historical annotations, fotos, ect. It made me notice the series. Also there were the usual historical figures playing a role in the stories, Wilde, Churchill and so on. A bit like Newman I guess. Today those novels seem to have become a cottage industry, just like Holmes novels. Back then they were few.
Maybe I would find it more interesting today after so many boring and ill conceived Holmes novels.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 24, 2018 10:22:51 GMT
I read a couple of the Lestrade books back in the 90s. Quite enjoyed them, I recall, though the suggestion was that Holmes was a delusional addict and Watson was merely humouring his ego with his accounts.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 25, 2018 11:28:56 GMT
I read a couple of the Lestrade books back in the 90s. Quite enjoyed them, I recall, though the suggestion was that Holmes was a delusional addict and Watson was merely humouring his ego with his accounts. While that sounds right, I remember nothing else about the two or three Lestrade books I read in the 1980s. I think the problem is that it seems to be impossible to sustain spoofs at novel length. |
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Post by ripper on Jul 28, 2018 9:30:08 GMT
I have read 3 or 4 of the Lestrade books by MJ Trow, including Lestrade and the Ripper. Though it has been years ago, I am pretty sure that they were parodies, with Holmes not being shown in a good light. Lots of historical figures tend to turn up and the plots meander a bit, but I quite enjoyed them.
Trow also wrote Ripper Hunter: Abberline and the Whitechapel Murders. My memories of this one are rather hazy, but I think it was more of a loose biography of Abberline than anything else.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 28, 2018 12:21:13 GMT
I have read 3 or 4 of the Lestrade books by MJ Trow, including Lestrade and the Ripper. Though it has been years ago, I am pretty sure that they were parodies, with Holmes not being shown in a good light. Lots of historical figures tend to turn up and the plots meander a bit, but I quite enjoyed them. Trow also wrote Ripper Hunter: Abberline and the Whitechapel Murders. My memories of this one are rather hazy, but I think it was more of a loose biography of Abberline than anything else. About historical figures, a baby Basil Rathbone cameos in one of the Lestrade books. And here he is:  |
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Post by ripper on Jul 28, 2018 16:11:12 GMT
I don't remember the baby Rathbone, so it must have appeared in one of the ones I haven't read--I think Trow is up to about 17 now, so they must be doing fair business to sustain so many in the series.
There is also quite a bit of wordplay and puns in the text, with some real groaners, though they are groaners in a good way imo.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 18, 2019 13:53:12 GMT
I'm most of the way through Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon by James Lovegrove, published last month by Titan Books: www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Christmas-Demon-Lovegrove/dp/1785658026/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=james+lovegrove+sherlock+holmes&qid=1574084230&s=books&sr=1-1The new Sherlock Holmes novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin.
It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe - eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty - is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.
Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick's calling card...
Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something - or someone - is threatening her sanity. Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover that there is more to the case than at first appeared. There is another spirit haunting the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realise that no one is beyond suspicion.
It's just okay. The style is nothing like Conan Doyle's, with much of the dialogue and descriptions being too modern. However, unlike most writers of new Sherlock Holmes stories, the deductions that Lovegrove has Holmes make are convincing. Many other authors describe extremely silly deductions that you could not hang a cat with and which are correct only because the authors say they are. Most interesting is Lovegrove's use of Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Meteorite, a chipped off portion of which is called the Hell Stone (which would have been a better title for the book).  |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 21, 2019 13:37:02 GMT
I'm most of the way through Sherlock Holmes and the Christmas Demon by James Lovegrove, published last month by Titan Books: www.amazon.co.uk/Sherlock-Holmes-Christmas-Demon-Lovegrove/dp/1785658026/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=james+lovegrove+sherlock+holmes&qid=1574084230&s=books&sr=1-1The new Sherlock Holmes novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Odin.
It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe - eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty - is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit.
Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick's calling card...
Eve stands to inherit a fortune if she is sound in mind, but it seems that something - or someone - is threatening her sanity. Holmes and Watson travel to the Allerthorpe family seat at Fellscar Keep to investigate, but soon discover that there is more to the case than at first appeared. There is another spirit haunting the family, and when a member of the household is found dead, the companions realise that no one is beyond suspicion.
It's just okay. The style is nothing like Conan Doyle's, with much of the dialogue and descriptions being too modern. However, unlike most writers of new Sherlock Holmes stories, the deductions that Lovegrove has Holmes make are convincing. Many other authors describe extremely silly deductions that you could not hang a cat with and which are correct only because the authors say they are. Most interesting is Lovegrove's use of Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Meteorite, a chipped off portion of which is called the Hell Stone (which would have been a better title for the book). I've finished the book. Here is a spoiler for those who don't want to read it. {Spoiler}The butler did it! You will laugh. |
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Post by andydecker on Nov 21, 2019 18:05:14 GMT
You were right.
I did laugh.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Nov 23, 2019 14:26:43 GMT
You were right. I did laugh. However, I have to admit that I was surprised by the solution, for which there were convincing clues that I missed. |
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