Baker Street Myth
HE continued vitality of the Baker Street myth is, I am convinced, the result of the rich, thick, plummy atmosphere of the Conan Doyle tales, and of the personalities of Holmes and Watson, In themselves, the stories are not really very good detection. As if aware of this, the current 1ZB series goes out of its way to provide lashings of atmo-sphere-the sound’ of cab-horses on cobblestones, the wailing of Holmes’s violin, references to the gasogene and London fog, the shag in the slipper, and so on-all a delight to the hearts of true Sherlockians, and eradicating the unhappy memory of films about a "modernised" Holmes, as out of place in a world of diesel engines, as Mike Hammer would be in Baker Street. It is hard to imagine a more distinguished duo for this series than the two knights, Gielgud and Richardson. Yet, in "The Blue Carbuncle" it was Richardson’s wheezing, fruity, innocently awe-struck Watson who impressed me rather than Gielgud’s rather cold and colourless Holmes, I realised, as never before, that if Holmes is Conan Doyle’s wish-fulfil-ment of his sleuth-self, Watson is surely his more humane and lovable side.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19550506.2.19.2
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 823, 6 May 1955, Page 10
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196Baker Street Myth New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 823, 6 May 1955, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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