National Theatre’s 2011 production of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein featured two actors alternating in the roles of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and The Monster. Maybe this has been pointed out before (and it has by The Guardian), but those two actors were Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller - Miller is of course the actor who is set to play the Great (NYC) Detective in CBS’s Elementary. From the New York Times review: “It’s in the physical relationship between the two actors (especially if you get to see them in both roles) that you sense the real, unbreakable connection between these characters. There’s a lovely repeated gesture that has each reaching out to the other, à la Michelangelo’s God and Adam.”
[Miller versus Cumberbatch vying to be the most Sherlockian of all the Sherlocks.]
MX Publishing is scheduled to release Marino C. Alvarez’s A Professor Reflects On Sherlock Holmes at the end of February 2012. Just this week it was announced that Prof. Alvarez would be participating in The Great Sherlock Holmes Debate 2 as a member of Team 3 AKA The Traditionalists. I can’t wait to get a review copy of this: “The uniqueness of this book is the essays and activities that include both serious and farcical writings about A. Conan Doyle’s, Sherlock Holmes. A travelogue that compares Reichenbach Falls and Trummelbach Falls for Professor Moriarty’s demise; and notes from a visit to Trinity College at Oxford to view Monsignor Knox’s writings and entries in the Gryphon Club Book provide the reader with engaging insights into Sherlock Holmes’ world of scholarship.”
[“The Professor it was….” Alvarez!]
Baker Street Babes interview Joe Lidster, the talent behind the BBC Sherlock blogs: John Watson’s Blog, The Science of Deduction, Molly Hooper’s Blog and The Connie Prince website (!). I’d have to imagine that writing ‘fictional’ blogs for the extended universe of a TV show or movie or comic must be one of the greatest jobs on earth. Mr Lidster seems to be a rather popular guy with over 3,300 followers on his @joellidster Twitter. The Babes discuss their “love for Molly Hooper [Louise Brealey] how [Lidster] got into Sherlock Holmes, jellyfish, viagra, getting into character, and generally a lot of gushing about Sherlock. We talk a bit about the #BelieveInSherlock campaign as well.”
[Hyper loyal friend and lab technician extraordinaire Molly Hooper has some serious Internets design skillz!]
Lovecraft Zine has put out a call for “Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes stories for an issue sometime this year” for a projected Sherlock Holmes issue. I would imagine Neil Gaiman “A Study in Emerald” is the ultimate inspiration for what the editor is looking for but there’s also the collection edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan titled Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror! which imagines what happens when the worlds of ACD and HPL collide. Last year Lovecraft Zine’s June 2011 issue (#5) published two short stories exploring said topic: “The Case of the Galloway Eidolon” by Bruce Durham and “The Call of the Dance” by William Meikle. Definitely an issue to look out for this year.
[The Lovecracft eZine is a monthly online magazine devoted to Lovecraftian horror.]
The Sherlock of London Blog announced that they are adding a Sherlockian/Doylean ’Events’ component to their site and asked for readers to submit information. Currently the only Sherlockian events listing of note (that I know of) is The Sherlockian Calendar maintained by Ron Fish of the Westchester County, N.Y. scion The Three Garridebs which currently lists events up to 2015! One notable difference is Sherlock of London Blog’s (w/ Sherlock Magazine) use of contemporary web technologies like RSS allowing users to receive updates in their feed readers opposed to having to visit the site. If Sherlock of London Events successfully maintains their site, I look forward to using both the Sherlockian Calendar and the Sherlock of London Events as complementary resources.
[“G-A-double R-I D-E-B Spells Garrideb (Garrideb) Proud to be a part of Sherlock Holmes’s scene, Keeping the memory of the Master bright green.” ‘A Garrideb Song’ song.]
A Scintillation of Scions, speaking of notable Sherlockian events, is hosting their fifth annual scintillating weekend Saturday, June 9, 2012. Speakers announced so far include Beth Austin (Watson’s Tin Box, editor of Irene’s Cabinet), The Baker Street Babes (podcast of the same name), Don Curtis (BSI, The Illustrious Clients), William Hyder (BSI, Watson’s Tin Box, The Six Napoleons of Baltimore, author of Introducing Sherlock Holmes) Jaime Mahoney (Watson’s Tin Box, Better Holmes & Gardens blog), Tracy Revels (Survivors of the Gloria Scott, author of Shadowfall), Pat Ward (The Illustrious Clients), Vincent W. Wright (winner of The Northumberland Award 2012, The Illustrious Clients) and Henry Zecher (author of William Gillette, America’s Sherlock Holmes). Register here. I’ll add more updates about this event as they become available.
[I hope to be here for June 9, 2012 weekend.]
Girl Meets Sherlock: A Holmesian Blog considers Sherlock Holmes at his most “outrageous”, that is Holmes exhibiting behavior such as “faking serious illness, faking death, becoming engaged to a maid, fooling his best friend into thinking he’s someone else, and taking part in Irene Adler’s wedding”; DYIN, FINA, CHAS, too many to mention, SCAN respectively. While I wouldn’t consider all of these specific examples as ‘outrageous’ per se, it’s worth thinking about the standards we hold Holmes to as well as when/why we let him slide. The blog’s creator Amy Thomas, Baker Street Babe and author of forthcoming MX Publishing title The Detective and the Woman, considers Holmes’ fake engagement to CAM Devil’s housemaid Agatha the “most outrageous moment in terms of doing something out of character for the sake of a case.”
[Holmes apologizing to Watson for his latest spell of outrageous behavior, i.e. faking his death for three years (FINA/EMPT).]
Burn Note is a new site which allows users to send messages to a friend/enemy/partner in the style of “this message will self-destruct in X seconds” à la Mission Impossible (e.g. 1966). You can set the self-destruct timer for as long as you’d like and the site promises that zero record of the message exists. After the message is received and the timer runs down no trace is left on their servers (unlike the majority of other e-mail/message sites), hence assuring that the contents stay ‘off the record’ and/or cannot come back to haunt you when you run for president (or whatever). An app after the heart of Abe Slaney.
[Voice On Tape: “As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.”]
![sherlockology:
Una Stubbs: ‘I just think, Oh, I hope I can be good enough’
From an interview in the Observer newspaper, viewable over at The Guardian website:
“Some people say to me, ‘Oh, did they tell you to play Mrs Hudson like that?’ Well, no, I just came up with it. I was given the script and I got on with it. I just saw her more like a mother figure to these two boys. There’s so much nastiness going on [in the series] that maybe to introduce something a little nicer is a good thing.”
Can she see why Benedict Cumberbatch has become a sex symbol? “Yes, I can because he’s just so unusual. He’s joli laid. One minute, you think [she breaks off and does a little moue of distaste], but then the next minute you think, ‘Oh, you’re so gorgeous.’”
Read the entire interview with Una, with a focus on her new play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at the National Theatre, here on The Guardian website.
Una, we heart you.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6h7foMZME1qkgkowo1_500.jpg)
