Living in London: An outing with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London

My introduction to the Sherlock Holmes Society of London; the Journal

For a Sherlockian, there is no better place than London.  In the 19th or 21st Century, the city is all that is Sherlock Holmes.  I joined the Sherlock Holmes Society of London only a few months after arriving, and I am not disappointed.  A group of writers, scholars and enthusiasts of all ages coming together to converse in and share their interest in the Great Detective; a place where one can, in effect, "geek out".  In my first outing with the Society, I had a weekend filled with visiting parts of London I never have, meeting fellow enthusiasts, and making new friends.  

It started with an Annual General Meeting (AGM) on a Thursday.  A business meeting that didn't last long at all lead to the discovery (for me) of the existence of a Baker Street musical, and a member-performance of a Holmes radio play.  Saturday and Sunday the gathering continued with visits to Greenwich and the Cutty Sark, and an excellent London walk and pub lunch on Sunday.

The Cutty Sark is the second ship museum that I have had the pleasure of visiting (the first was Brunel's ship in Bristol).  The restoration and use of a ship as a museum has impressed me a great deal.  The glass casing shown in the picture houses the bottom of the hull of the ship, as well as gift shop and cafe.  Starting below decks we walked through the clipper ship where the ship's main cargo of tea or wool was brought to life for both adults and children.  Above deck, visitors are able to get a glimpse of life aboard a 19th Century clipper with restored living quarters for officers and seaman of all ranks.  It is impossible to visit one of these amazing museums without imagining what it was like, and how different it is from today's luxury cruise liners.  These were certainly not the lap-of-luxury; not even for the officers and captain!

The way to Greenwich was by boat along the Thames passing by Holmesian sites along the River.

We received this great companion to our trip.  Greenwich has a some scattered shoreline along the Thames and I was happy to sit and take in the view after lunch.

Sunday saw  the day begin with an excellent walk through some parts of Sherlock Holmes's London.  We passed Charing Cross Hospital (now a police station), offices of the Strand, the Lyceum Theatre (still the Lyceum today), the Bow Street police station, which was just recently shut down and other sites.  Once again I was transported to another time and could imagine Holmes and Watson dashing through the streets of  central London on one of their many adventures.  Fun outings make for a fun (and educational) weekend.  One more reason to enjoy life in London!

Telly Delights: Reviews Ripper Street

Ripper Street threesome: Drake, Reid, and Jackson (l-r)

Upon hearing the title, I was intrigued.  When I saw a lead actor, I was definitely going to watch.  After I saw the first episode, I was hooked.
Ripper Street is one of those unexpected surprises.  It has just the right amount of crime procedural, period piece setting, action-adventure, and character drama to make it an absolute gem.
My Sunday nights are not complete without this BBC addition (last week with the BAFTAs in its time-slot, I was quite disappointed).  Yes television viewers, we did miss out.  Luckily, it will return this week.

The first thing I thought, with an opening scene on bare-knuckle boxing and opening credits in a very Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes style, was that it was trying to be that type of story, just on a smaller screen. Wrong again.  It has the quality of Deadwood with the quirkiness of Firefly; the feeling more of a Victorian era Western, if there ever could be such a thing.
The name could be misleading.  It is set in Whitechapel, and the lead character, Edmund Reid (played with perfection by Matthew Macfayden) is based on a London detective who worked on the Jack the Ripper cases, but this is distinctly set just after the infamous spree. Reid is doing all he can to calm his streets in the aftermath, while at the same time clearly facing some deeper personal issues we have yet to fully understand. His right-hand men are Det. Sergeant Drake (Game of Thrones), and the somewhat mysterious ex-soldier, ex-Pinkerton, Yankee doctor, Jackson.  Together they do what needs to be done.

The main casting couldn't have been better.  Without it Ripper Street may not be the series it is.  Matthew Macfayden (Spooks, Little Dorrit, Pride and Prejudice) shows the Ripper audience perhaps his best work as Edmund Reid, the Detective Inspector in Whitechapel's H division police department.  Inspired by a real person,  Macfayden's Reid is not meant to be a historical representation.  He is given a fictional background, and Macfayden brings the perfect amount of humanity and action to the late 19th Century that fills our 21st Century needs.  Jerome Flynn (Game of Thrones fans will recognize him as Bronn) is wonderful as DS Bennet Drake.  Reid and Drake play the good-cop, bad-cop with their suspects; Drake relishing the bad-cop role by roughing-up the bad guys until Reid gets his answers.  Flynn's Drake is loyal to his Inspector, and, despite having that rough exterior, it clear that there is a human being inside.  With British actors going to Hollywood, it's great to see an American actor, playing an American, in an English series.  Talk about authenticity!  Captain Homer Jackson gets more and more interesting everytime he's on screen.  He is a wild card, Reid knows, but he is good at what he does.  A former soldier, former Pinkerton (thank you Arthur Conan Doyle for my introduction to the Pinkertons), a doctor (Reid's coroner).  Rothenberg brings the mystery, a Yankee confidence and swagger, and even loyalty to a character who always leaves you wondering who side he is really on.

The series brings modern ideas to the late Victorian era, but they seem to fit right in.  We can see that social issues, modernity, and people are the essentially the same, even after a century of wars, and industrial and technological advances.  That makes a series like this timeless.  It has been renewed for a second series.  With enjoyable series' so few and far between, I am glad that there is more Ripper Street on the horizon.  

Living in London: An Anglophile's real delight

Parliament and the Thames: London landmarks

For an Anglophile, London is it.  We love to hear about it, see pictures of it, watch movies and telly with it being a prominent setting or character in its own right.  Living and working in London, has made me one happy Anglophile.
Coming up on three months, I am still in the honeymoon phase with my new home.  I have got very little to say bad about it, and lots to rave about.  Weekends in town are spent strolling around different neighbourhoods, and discovering really how close Soho is to Covent Garden and Trafalgar Square.  Walks along the Thames are frequent; at first most weekends, now twice a day on a route to and from work to the Tube station.

January snow and the local church

In a big city, one can indulge in their interests and passions; London is no exception.  Theatre is abound, history is around constantly, and literature looms; those are just a few of the interests that tether me to the city.  Would I have spent 125 quid on that first edition book of Arthur Conan Doyle?  Yes, I sure wanted to, but had to let it pass.  How cool was it to see Edith Crawley and Balin from the Hobbit on the same stage together in a classic Russian piece of literature? Amazing!  Am I ever going to see the remaining section of wall from the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison mentioned by Dickens in Little Dorrit?  Of course. That and much more is what London is to an anglophile.  Living in my adopted city, I feel at ease.  Working in a satisfying job, living in a satisfying place, and indulging in one of your favourite cities in the world.  Can't get much better...ok, a couple ways it could, but I'll leave that to the imaginations.  

Theatrical Delights: NT The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time review

Theatre has become a definite new interest.  I prefer going to the theatre now than most movies.  So, when another chance had arisen to take advantage of the National Theatre Live at Portland's Third Rail Repertory Theatre, I was there.

The National Theatre's production of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time is another example of  amazing stage work that is actually taking place in Britian.  Based the on the 2003 novel of the same name by writer Mark Haddon, the piece expertly adapts the first-person point-of-view book to the stage.  I must, unfortunately, admit that I have never read the book, but knowing the past production value of the National Theatre and being familiar with a couple of the actors in the play I guessed that I would not be disappointed. I was not.

Picture from a www.timeout.com review,
 which gives 4 stars to the piece.

The Curious Incident, as I'll refer to the play from now, had a wonderful stage presence and design.  In contrast to the large main stage used in Frankenstein, this production was played out on a decidedly smaller, more intimate stage, which made me feel at bit closer to the main character, Christopher Boone.  The rest of the company not only acted as other characters, but at times a visual representation of Boone's unique perception of the world (played by Luke Treadaway) around him, as he reacted to the bustle of the train station or simply lying on his bed, takes the audience to his physical space and limitations.

The set was simple, yet ornate.  The only objects on the stage where white boxes, but projections and Treadaway's chalk drawings gave a new dimension that I think could rival the most detailed pieces.  A favorite scene of mine took place on the train. Boxes are set up in rows, as if seats on the train with actors sitting on them when all of the sudden they move to an L-shaped position, lying on the floor next to their boxes.  The POV shifts and suddenly they are, once again, sitting in their seats with a projected scenery speeding by.  I don't know how the actual audience viewed it, but viewing it on the screen, with a changed view was quite impressive.  Another scene featured the same technique having Boone (Treadaway) make his way down a projected escalator.  The stage was at could be a train, a station, a neighborhood, or even Boone's home by the change of lighting and projections.

This is the first time I had seen actor Luke Treadaway, but after this performance I am sure he has a great career ahead of him.  His interpretation of Christopher Boone made someone like who had never read the book and come to the play a bit green, leave the theatre feeling like that had met someone genuine and real.  And, it was fun to see my favorite Mrs. Hudson, Una Stubbs, break out from the confines of Baker Street in this play.

After seeing the play, I do want to read the book for myself soon.  For even though Haddon never claims to be commenting on autism or austim-spectrum disorders, it is clear that Christopher lives with one as do many others in our society.  I think that getting a glimpse into their view and experience in life makes the play and book exceptional works.

Doyle Delights: Less delight, more dull--CBS's Elementary falls short

Last Thursday night, the 27th of September I spent one hour being bored.  Bored. Bored. Bored. But, I had to watch.  It was Sherlock Holmes! One of the most delightful British delights. Yes, I watched the latest reincarnation of the world's most famous detective.

And, boy is he famous! In an earlier blog, I wrote about the resurgence of Holmes via the Downey Jr./Law Warner Brothers movies and the Cumberbatch/Freeman BBC series.  American television has now decided to throw their deductions in the ring with CBS's Elementary, starring Jonny Lee Miller as the great detective and Lucy Liu, as a female "Joan" Watson.  Good news:  Elementary is not BBC's Sherlock.  Bad News:  Elementary is not that great of a television show.

At its core, Elementary is an American police procedural made for an American audience.  So, my beef is why call the character Sherlock Holmes at all?  The only things Sherlockian about the show is Miller's British accent, a brief mention of beekeeping, and a police captain called Tobias Gregson.  Bringing this Holmes to New York City and "modernizing" him in this way has stripped the character of Sherlock Holmes to an unrecognizable, unimaginable, and uninteresting detective.  Canonical (and well adapted on-screen Holmes') are far different from this warm, humanistic Holmes.  Elements of this Holmes simply seemed off.  Holmes does eventually become a warmer person (over 50+ stories and 4 novels) but it is does not happen until later, and its moments are fleeting.  Holmes would have never said that he hates it when he's right, on the contrary, he loves it!  He does not "spare feelings", he is brutally honest.  I certainly don't consider myself to be a Sherlockian canon purist, but this one strays a bit too far for me.  

Having a Sherlock Holmes, there must be a Watson.  John or, in this case, Joan...it didn't really matter to me. A female Watson works, it's fine; however, once again when an adaptation goes too far from the original source then something isn't right.  Joan Watson is certainly not Dr. John Watson in more than their difference in gender.  One: she is no longer a doctor.  Watson needs to be a doctor, in some capacity.  I just didn't buy the "sober companion".  She has no military background.  Watson needs a military experience, Watson needs to be ready for their adventures, if there are any "adventures" in Elementary.  These two main pieces of Watson's character have been taken away, not to the detriment of the show, but to the detriment of the character.  As with Holmes, when one takes away the essential elements of a character there is no reason to call them those names.

Luckily Elementary's Sherlock Holmes has a British accent.  Then his name might best be Greg House.  Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes is by far the least traditional Holmes I've ever seen on screen.  Un-kept with a five-o-clock shadow certainly doesn't fit my image of the gentleman that is Sherlock Holmes.  It is just the pilot, but Miller didn't quite seem comfortable with fast-paced dialogue and seemed to make odd, erratic movements appear unatural.  There are some actors that can pull off fast-paced dialogue (i.e. David Tennant's and Matt Smith's  Doctors 10 and 11, or even Rathbone's, Brett's, Downey Jrs., and Cumberbatch's Holmes').  Unfortunately, it felt as if Miller was trying too hard.  Liu is the type of actress that could play a Holmes-type character.  I felt she was too limited in the "sidekick" role, and as it turned out made her own interesting deductions.  She is definitely more than a conductor of light and that may prove to be a problem as well.  In the end, Miller and Liu's performance did not convince me of an immediate friendship that Holmes and Watson shared.  It is likely one that will grow over time.

If Elementary brings new readers or brings people back to the canon, then I couldn't be any happier.  But, will the differences be too much?  Will readers wonder why Holmes is in London?  Why Watson is a male and ex-military? Why isn't Gregson in more stories?  Time will only tell.