Sher-Lockdown (2) - Audio

As stated in my previous post, lockdown has seen me finding other ways to spend my weekends and evenings, given the lack of signing events and theatrical entertainments. However, I have found a multitude of online Sherlockian content to keep me amused (the majority of it being free). I therefore give my top 5 Sherlockian audio treats for lockdown.

 

5) Imagination Theater - The creators of the only American complete audio canon to feature the same actors as Holmes and Watson - John Patrick Lowrie and Larry Albert - although their regular broadcasts are no more, they continue to publish new entries in 'The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'. The most recent is 'The Adventure of the Silent Sherlockians', which features the final performance of Rick May as Inspector Lestrade, recorded two weeks before he sucumbed to Covid-19.  Well worth the $1.99 download price, as are all the other 'Further Adventures'.

4)  'The Great Game', a choose-your-own-adventure-style Alexa skill written to accompany 'The Voice of Treason', a new Sherlock Holmes drama from Audible. Both the skill and the drama are co-written by comic book and audio drama veterans George Mann & Cavan Scott, and star Nicholas Boulton as Holmes and Kobna Holbrook-Smith as Watson. The 'Great Game' lasts an hour from beginning to end, but it can take longer to solve depending on your choices. It's free to play on Alexa whether you're an Audible member or not. Enable the skill to play and then say, "Alexa, start The Great Game."    (If you enjoy this, try the audiobook itself - 'The Voice of Treason' on Audible)

3) Carleton Hobbs & Norman Shelley - First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1966/7, Series 6 of these BBC radio episodes are available on iPlayer for the next few days, including 'The Final Problem'.  Between 1952 to 1969, there were 75 episodes. The stories recorded were created in two main batches. The first 18 stories was from 1952 to 1958, when the recordings were made for BBC Children's Hour. The second batch spans from 1959 to 1969 and were produced for the adult listener. Click here to listen.

2) 221b -  First broadcast on the BBC World Service in March 1986, this one man play by MJ Read starring Nigel Stock (Watson to both Douglas Wilmer and Peter Cushing on BBC TV and to Robert Hardy on radio, and also Professor Waxflatter in 'Young Sherlock Holmes'), is being repeated on BBC 4Extra on Sunday 31st May 2020 at 4pm. It will be available after this, here, until 30th June 2020. The play finds Watson feeling nostalgic as he revisits 221B Baker Street, a flat he once shared with Holmes. Here he reminisces about the life and adventures he shared with the legendary detective who is thought lost at the Reichenbach Falls.

1) 'Watson: The Final Problem' - The most exciting as far as I am concerned, a new Sherlockian play by Bert Coules, Head Writer on the BBC Radio 4 complete Canon starring Clive Merrison and the follow-up 'The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes', written in conjunction with its star, Tim Marriott (best known for 'The Brittas Empire'). Another one-man Watson-focused piece.


The intention was to perform 'Watson: The Final Problem' on stage this autumn and on tour in 2021, but in the current circumstances instead a radio-style recording was made in isolation to help develop the project and keep the creatives busy in lockdown. In true Sherlock Homes style, ingeniously improvising with home equipment, Tim Marriott recorded the script in a makeshift home studio made with a microphone and laptop under a duvet held up by a kitchen chair; Clive Whitburn created the score in his garden shed; and Bert Coules drew on all his past BBC experience to stitch the piece together using only the electronic equivalent of a razor blade, splicing tape, and a collection of improvised sound effects. The full audio recording is at: www.smokescreenprods.com for free, but with donations requested.

Bert Coules

Oh, and BBC Radio 4Extra have a 'Sherlock Holmes Weekend' on 13th and 14th June 2020. On Saturday 13th, they are broadcasting Peter Mackie’s play 'The Adventure of the Pimlico Poisoner', featuring William Chubb and Crawford Logan as Holmes and Watson, first heard in 1990.   [Logan also appeared as Watson in the 1988 dramatisation of HOUND that led to the Merrison series]. The play will be transmitted at 6am and 4pm on Saturday, and again at 4am on Sunday.


And then at 1pm on Sunday 14th, you can luxuriate in three whole hours of Holmes, beginning with a 1945 dramatisation of 'The Speckled Band', starring Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Edward's father) and Finlay Currie, then Sir John Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson in 'The Red-Headed League', the classic team of Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley in 'The Boscombe Valley Mystery', and Clive Merrison and Michael Williams in 'The Solitary Cyclist'. The programme concludes with 'The Abergavenny Murder', a two-hander in which Andrew Sachs plays Watson to Clive Merrison’s Holmes.  It will all be repeated at 1am on Monday morning. Both will then be available on iPlayer.