Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes - Radio

Radio

See also: List of BBC Radio Sherlock Holmes Dramatisations

One famous radio appearance starred Orson Welles as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays. This was broadcast in September 1938 as part of the "Mercury Theater on the Air" series on CBS Radio.

Throughout the early 1940s on American Radio, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce performed as Holmes and Watson, respectively, in several series of canonical and original Sherlock Holmes stories on the The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show. These broadcasts were loosely based on Doyle's cases. When Rathbone finally departed the role before the 1947 season, Tom Conway played Sherlock Holmes opposite Nigel Bruce for one season. After a change of networks, there were two more pairings: John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson in 1947-1948 and John Stanley and Ian Martin in 1948-1949. Both Stanley and Conway emulated Rathbone when performing Holmes to aid in continuity for the audience.

John Gielgud played Holmes for BBC radio in the 1950s, with Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud, appeared in one of the episodes, perhaps inevitably, as Mycroft Holmes. As this series was co-produced by the American Broadcasting Company, known American actors also appeared, such as Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty in The Adventure of the Final Problem.

Carleton Hobbs portrayed Holmes in a series of BBC radio broadcasts that ran from 1952 to 1969, with Norman Shelley playing Watson. Many of these were broadcast on Children's Hour. Of the many actors who have portrayed Holmes and Watson for the BBC, the Hobbs and Shelley duo is the longest running.

There have been many other radio adaptations (over 750 in English), including a more recent BBC Radio 4 run featuring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. Together, the two actors completed radio adaptations of every story in the canon between 1989 and 1998. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a new series consisting of original stories written exclusively by Bert Coules was then commissioned, but following Williams' death from cancer in 2001, he was replaced by Andrew Sachs. The episodes of The Further Adventures were based on throwaway references in Doyle's short stories and novels. The complete canonical run is available on CD and audio tape. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is also available on CD as four box sets each containing four episodes.

BBC Radio 2 also broadcast in 1999 a more ribald six-episode spoof series featuring Holmes and Watson entitled The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes starring Roy Hudd as Holmes ("England's greatest detective, master of disguise and toffee-nosed ponce"), Chris Emmett as Watson ("contributor to the British Medical Journal, Which Stethescope Magazine and inventor of the self-raising thermometer") and June Whitfield as Mrs. Hudson. Titles in this series included "The Case of the Clockwork Fiend", "The Mystery of the Obese Escapologist", "The Caes of the Deranged Botanist", "Sherlock Holmes and the Glorious Doppelganger", "Holmes Strikes a Happy Medium" and "The Demon Cobbler of Greek Street", and usually turned out to have Holmes' mortal enemy Moriarty (Geoffrey Whitehead) behind each mystery. This series has since been re-broadcast on BBC Radio 7.

Starting in 1998, U.S. radio producer Jim French was given permission from the Conan Doyle estate to produce new, original Sherlock Holmes stories for radio in North America. These are presented within the Imagination Theater program on radio stations and XM satellite radio. The new stories are also broadcast under the banner The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. John Gilbert played Holmes until 2000, and subsequently by John Patrick Lowrie. Watson is played in all shows by Lawrence Albert. Scripts are by Jim French, M. J. Elliott, Matthew Booth, John Hall, Gareth Tilley, J R Campbell and Lawrence Albert. In 2005, with adaptations written by M. J. Elliott, French and his company began a new series based on Conan Doyle's original tales called "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Many episodes are available on CD as well as downloadable from the Imagination Theater website.