Sherlock Holmes (1951 TV series)

Sherlock Holmes
Written by	C. A. Lejeune
Starring	Alan Wheatley Raymond Francis Eric Maturin Iris Vandeleur
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6 Episode list
Production
Producer(s)	Ian Atkins
Running time	35 min.
Release
Original network	BBC Television Service
Original release	20 October – 1 December 1951

Sherlock Holmes (a.k.a. We Present Alan Wheatley as Mr Sherlock Holmes in...) was a 1951 television series produced by the BBC featuring Alan Wheatley as Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Francis as Dr. Watson and Eric Maturin as Colonel Moran. This was the first series of Sherlock Holmes stories adapted for television.

Some sources state that a BBC filmed adaptation of "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" (which aired on 29 July 1951) starring Andrew Osborn as Holmes and Philip King as Watson was a pilot episode for the series while others claim the "Mazarin Stone" adaptation was a separate thing entirely and was filmed for the Festival of Britain.

Series star Alan Wheatley claimed that the genesis of the series resided with a review of his performance in a television adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's Rope.

C. A. Lejeune gave me a marvelous notice in the Observer and she finished up by saying, "If the BBC have got any sense they will commission a series of Sherlock Holmes stories and ask Alan Wheatley to play Sherlock Holmes." So the BBC, very unlike them, took this up and wrote to her and said, "All right, if you will do the scripts we will do the series," and that's how they came to be done...

C. A. Lejeune did indeed pen the scripts, writing all six episodes. Lejeune claimed the series strived for accuracy noting the first episode as "the first of many adaptations to trumpet canonical authenticity as the sine qua non for essays into Holmesesian lore."

In an interview for Radio Times, Lejeune stated "we picked the stories that seemed likely to give a variety of subject, while rounding out the portrait of the man..."

Each 35 minute episode was aired live and consequently no tapes exist of the series to date. Live television had its pitfalls of which Wheatley later complained.

I must say I found it the most difficult thing to speak I've ever done in the whole of my career. Unfortunately, Miss Lejeune also did some things that are just not possible - technical things like not allowing enough time for changes. You see, television was live in those days, and in one particular scene she finished up with a sentence from me, and opened the next scene also with a sentence from me, in heavy disguise, with no time at all for a change!

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