Re-Imagined Radio | The Immortal Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, first appeared in "A Study in Scarlett," a story by Scottish physican and author Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1887. A series of stories, beginning with "A Scandal in Bohemia," appeared in The Strand Magazine in 1891 and continued until 1927.

Doyle was prolific, authoring four novels and fifty-six short stories about his fictional detective. The result is world-wide popularity and impact of Sherlock Holmes and a profound effect on mystery and detective writing and popular culture with thousands of stories written by authors other than Conan Doyle being turned into films, television programs, stage and radio plays, video games, and other media for more than 100 years. Examples include Agatha Christie's fictional detective Hercule Poirot, as well as antihero gentlemen thiefs like A.J. Raffles and Arsene Lupin. Film adaptations starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law, the BBC One TV series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Elementary, set in contemporary New York starring Johnny Miller and Lucy Liu as a female Dr. Watson are other examples. In all, Holmes' popularity and his fame as a detective makes it easy for members of literary and fan societies to believe him real.

Arthur Conan Doyle grew tired of Sherlock Holmes and wanted to shift his writing focus to other stories. So, he killed off Holmes in "The Final Problem," first published in 1893. Holmesian fans would have nothing to do with this and Doyle was forced to bring his fictional detective back from the dead in The Hound of the Baskervilles, a novel published in The Strand Magazine between 1901 and 1902. Cleverly, Doyle set the time frame before Holmes' death, and so Sherlock Holmes remains immortal even though he never lived.

This Re-Imagined Radio performance has an impressive pedigree. It begins with a stage play written by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1897. The following year, American playwright and actor William Hooker Gillette worked with Doyle to rewrite the play for American audiences who wanted melodramatic stories about stoic, strong heroes keeping their wits about them in both dangerous and romantic situations.

Gillette introduced several props now considered Sherlock Holmes icons, including his curved pipe (easier to hold in the mouth while speaking and did not obstruct the audience's view of the actor's mouth), a splendid dressing gown, the violin, the magnifying glass, the Scottish deerstalker cap, and the phrase "Oh, this is elementary my dear fellow," later changed by the popular press to "Elementary, my dear Watson." Interesting trivia fact: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never used the phrase "elementary, my dear fellow" in his novels or stories about Holmes.

Gillette performed his Sherlock Holmes melodrama during hundreds of performances in the United States and England. His play was adapted for movies and radio. In 1938, it was adapted and performed by The Mercury Theatre on the Air, starring Orson Welles as Sherlock Holmes. From this lineage Re-Imagined Radio crafted its own adaptation of The Immortal Sherlock Holmes.

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