Watching a recording of a live stream online theatre dramatisation of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ from Hardin County Schools Performing Arts Center at the end of last month, and having made a few checks, I realised that this represented the fiftieth such dramatisation that I had experienced of Sherlock Holmes’ most famous case. Despite having Holmes out of the action for over half the story, it seems to be the ‘go-to tale’ when intending to present a Sherlock Holmes adaptation. I have therefore taken advantage of reaching the magic number of 50, to reflect on these dramatisations by medium, in what I hope may become a regular feature (covering the other three novels).
Radio/Audio
It is in the audio medium that I intend to start. As I have mentioned in this blog before, although it was theatre and TV that first got me into Mr. Sherlock Holmes, it was the Radio 4 dramatisations of the stories with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams that cemented my Sherlockian passion. In fact the Radio 4 series tackled HOUND twice, the first time starring Roger Rees and Crawford Logan as a sort-of pilot, then as the final canonical story of the series, now with the stars of the other 59 stories, Merrison & Williams. However, my first experience of HOUND was a different audio version, a three-hour epic on two cassettes from Collins/Caedmon (the cassette cover image is above), starring Nicol Williamson and George Rose as Holmes and Watson respectively. (Williamson had previously played Holmes in the film ‘The Seven Percent Solution’ eight years before the 1984 audio production). The performances along with carefully chosen pieces of classical music (I still can’t hear ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’ without thinking of a spectral hound) meant that my young mind was hooked from the words ‘They were the footprints of a gigantic hound’. The pictures certainly are better on the radio.
I must also mention the Clive Nolan/Oliver Wakeman concept album (narrated by Robert Powell as Watson), which is being re-released in April 2021 as part of a boxset, ‘Tales by Gaslight’, also containing their rock opera version of ‘Jabberwocky’ and tracks from an unreleased ‘Frankenstein’ album.
Many audio versions have followed included the excellent ‘Big Finish’ dramatisation with Nicholas Briggs and Richard Earl, a version starring ‘Castle’ regular Seamus Deaver, and even a version starring Sir Derek Jacobi which manages to cram the entire story into 35½ minutes.
Films
There are two classic film versions of HOUND, the Twentieth Century Fox film in 1939 starring Nigel Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (in the first of their appearances as the duo on film and radio) and the Hammer film twenty years later starring Peter Cushing and Andre Morrell. Both play up the atmosphere of the moor, despite neither being filmed on Dartmoor, as well as the love story between Sir Henry and a local woman, and I find it hard to choose between them, but slightly prefer the Hammer version for the inclusion of Christopher Lee as Sir Henry. I have also struggled through three German dramatisations from 1914, 1929 and 1937, the first two being silent but with English surtitles helping immensely. An animated version of the story in 1983 starring the bored voice of Peter O’Toole (he recorded dialogue for all four novels, seemingly in one day from his lucklustre performance) should be overlooked by all but completists.
However, even this is not the worst film version – the Peter Cook & Dudley Moore version in 1978 beats all comers. As I will show in my discussion of theatre dramatisations below, HOUND is a novel ripe for a humourous take, with some jokes being there already in the original text – Sir Henry describing the Hound as ‘the pet story of the family’ being the prime example. However, the film is simply not funny, the only slightly amusing parts being taken wholesale from a ‘Julian and Sandy’ sketch from ‘Round The Horne’ (Kenneth Williams looking appropriately outraged by the theft) and the pair’s ‘One Leg Too Few’ sketch in full when trying to hire a runner. Even Spike Milligan in a brief cameo looks embarrassed to be in it.
Television
The earliest television HOUND that I have seen in the 1968 BBC version, again starring Peter Cushing (this time with Nigel Stock as Watson), one of the few episodes to remain from that series. In fact the BBC have regularly returned to HOUND, with the 1982 version starring Tom Baker (just after he had left ‘Doctor Who’) and adapted by ‘Doctor Who’ stalwart Terrance Dicks, being my favourite (if a little slavish to the original text). The other two BBC dramatisations were the 2002 version starring Richard Roxborough and Ian Hart, and the 2012 updated version starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. In 1983 Ian Richardson investigated the spectral hound (his ‘Sign of Four’ was much better due to a far superior Watson), in 1988 Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke gave us their version, and in 2000 Matt ‘Max Headroom’ Frewer appeared in a Canadian version. Further updated versions were seen in ‘Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century: The Hounds of Baskervilles’ and ‘Elementary: Hounded’. I have also enjoyed an Italian dramatisation from 1968, and a Russian one from 1981, starring the excellent Vasily Livanov and Vitaly Solomin.
However, again there is a dramatisation letting the side down – the 1972 Universal TV movie, starring the far too old Stewart Granger as Holmes (and Bernard Fox as Watson). The main problem can be seen in the casting of William Shatner in the roles of both the villain of the piece and his ancestor, the wicked Sir Hugo Baskerville with an ineffective beard, meaning that as soon as he appeared in the modern-day role it was clear who was behind it all. Shatner’s acting style only adds to the problems. I see-saw between this and the Cook/Moore film as my least favourite HOUND.
Theatre
Theatre performances make up nearly 40% of the total. The first theatre version of HOUND that I ever saw was a straight dramatisation in 2001, the Tim Kelly version freely available to amateur dramatics groups. However, all my memories in relation to it are of myself and a friend struggling not to laugh as one of the characters poked fake flames in a fire, causing the whole fireplace to wobble. It also changed the villain for no discernable reason. In the years since I have seen multiple versions of HOUND that were intentionally funny, so I intend to look at the theatre performances by type: straight play, and comedy.
My second theatre HOUND starred Peter Egan and Philip Franks (who I saw again a few years later performing ‘The Secret of Sherlock Holmes’). I remember the set resembled a pile of books. Since then I have seen nine further straight dramatisations (including another production of the Tim Kelly version). My memories of some of these are very vague, but I remember enjoying a live radio play version written by Simon Williams; a production presented by Pollyanna Training Theatre in 2015 in which all the parts were played by children, with a female Holmes and Watson; and an open-air version presented by Illyria in 2018 in the grounds of Lincoln Castle.
However, it is a promenade production in 2019, presented by 09 Lives in a Victorian graveyard at night that I have the clearest recollection of, in particular when we reached ‘Baskerville Hall’. (Click here for a full review). An audio version (no longer available) was released during lockdown, and was an immediate purchase for me. This production along with many of my favourite theatre versions managed to keep the ‘Hound’ at a distance so as not to spoil the carefully built atmosphere with a substandard dog (As I said in a previous post on this blog – “If doing 'The Hound of the Baskervilles', and you can't produce a realistic glowing 'devil dog', let its attacks always be off-stage”.)
Moving on to the comedic versions (where a ‘rubbish Hound’ adds to the hilarity). The first comic version that I ever saw was the incomparable Peepolykus’ West End residency at the Duchess Theatre (where years later I saw ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ – a worthy successor) in 2007. This has proved to be a version impossible to beat in later years, with even a production with the same script and the extra cachet of being performed mere yards from where the original novel was written at Undershaw, not coming close. Javier Marzan’s strongly-Spanish Holmes will never be bettered comedically. I have also seen two versions of the story written by ‘BGT’ auditionee Ben Langley, the second version starring Joe Pasquale as Holmes (honestly!). More recently, I have enjoyed Northern Rep’s two-main HOUND (beating the usual three man version), and a family-friendly version starring renowned clown, Tweedy (Alan Digweed). Online, I have also seen a production of Ken Ludwig’s ‘Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Play’ (another amateur production favourite).
Finally, I should mention ‘The Baskerville Beast’, a Musical by Teddy Hayes, which I saw in the remains of Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, getting the writer to sign my purchased copy of the OLC in the interval. The songs which I regularly listen to are now firm favourites.
Conclusions
So after fifty dramatisations what have I learnt ? The character of ‘Frankland the crank’ is easily written out. The pictures on radio and in a pitch black graveyard are best. A poorly designed Hound prop can ruin built-up tension in a theatre. If you want to make HOUND funny cast a Spaniard as Holmes. Don’t cast a geriatric Holmes (and certainly not William Shatner). And finally, HOUND makes a surprisingly good musical.
Favourites:
Radio/Audio: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – Collins/Caedmon 1984 (Williamson/Rose)
Film: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – Hammer Films 1958 (Cushing/Morrell)
TV: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – BBC TV 1982 (Baker/Rigby)
Theatre: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – 09 Lives 2019 (Galassi/Cain) [Play]
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ – Peepolykus 2007 (Marzan/Nicholson) [Comedy]
Click here for a full list of dramatisations.
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