ROY MARSDEN Sherlock Holmes centenary

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 16

ROY MARSDEN

Sherlock Holmes centenary

By

Gillian Wainwright

in Britain

Sherlock Holmes’s centenary—the one hundredth anniversary of the first appearance of the Victorian sleuth in print—is to be marked by a special television programme being made in Britain by Granada Television.

The star will be one of the most popular actors ever to play Holmes, Jeremy Brett. Dr Watson will be played by Edward Hardwicke in the twohour version of Conan Doyle’s adventure story “The Sign of Four.”

John Thaw, whose acting career has been spent mainly upholding the law in “The Sweeney,” changes sides to play the villain, a mysterious onelegged man. Twenty episodes were made of the Sherlock Holmes series by Granada. The two-hour film marks the start of a final series of six more

episodes. All of them are available for sale overseas.

Production starts this week on the film in locations mainly in the north of England but also in London and Malta. It marks the return of Jeremy Brett to work after his recovery in hospital following what he described as “a good oldfashioned nervous breakdown.” The executive producer of the film, Michael Cox said, “Jeremy Is now fully recovered and ready to be back at work.” He added, “Jeremy’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is now established as one of the best ever on film. We wanted to make a special contribution to the centenary celebrations. As ‘The Sign of Four’ is one of the most visually exciting of Holmes’s adventures, we decided to shoot it on 35mm film to do the greatest possible justice to our design and lighting skills.”