Ever evolving Sherlock Holmes

Literary critic Edmund Wilson published a much-hyped piece in The New Yorker in 1945, titled “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?” Well, although most people no longer recall Wilson, it appears that Roger Ackroyd’s murder continues to be a topic of interest, as was mystified in a landmark Hercule Poirot adventure penned by Agatha Christie in 1926.

Yes, detective fiction can sometimes be immensely popular. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle “killed” Sherlock Holmes in an 1893 story because he felt he “had such an overdose of” the detective, his admirers were outraged and inconsolable. Over 20,000 readers left The Strand Magazine, where the Sherlock Holmes stories were published. And Conan Doyle had to orchestrate “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” 10 years later. Holmes, certainly, “has enjoyed the most vigorous afterlife of any fictional character”, as adaptation scholar Thomas Leitch noted. Since 1900, approximately 100 actors from more than a dozen countries have played Holmes in more than 200 films. No wonder that May 22, Conan Doyle’s birthday, is observed as “Sherlock Holmes Day”.

One drawback of detective stories is that they could easily become period pieces when their style and underlying technologies become antiquated. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock, a late 19th and early 20th century sleuth, for instance, was unfamiliar with the internet, GPS, smartphones, or cybercrime. Again, Holmes cannot continue to be the same pipe-smoking, violin-playing, cocaine-injecting Victorian detective in the modern era. Today’s Holmes, for example, would never rush to his elder brother Mycroft for a piece of information; Google would serve his purpose considerably better! Therefore, it makes sense that Holmes could need to change.

More than 50 years ago it started. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, a 1970 Billy Wilder film, presented an affectionate, slightly parodic look at the Victorian sleuth and distinguished between the “real” Holmes and the persona portrayed by Dr Watson for his stories for The Strand Magazine.

But over the past 15 years or so, Holmes has seen the majority of notable adaptations. Despite being set in Victorian London, Guy Ritchie’s two previous films, Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), are two fascinating attempts at presenting a new Holmes, although a release date for Sherlock Holmes 3 has not yet been confirmed. In reality, Mr Ritchie’s distinctive “rough and tumble” filmmaking style elevated Holmes into an action hero. Additionally, the celebrity personas of Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law added fresh flavour to the characters of Holmes and Dr Watson as well as their relationship.

Then, some intriguing TV series on different continents reinvented Holmes for the 21st century. First, think about the Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss-written, Benedict Cumberbatch-starred, and BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning BBC series Sherlock (2010-17), which is set in present-day London. Interestingly, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was cited by Messrs Moffat and Gatiss as an influence on their television programme. This “Sherlock”, of course, is constrained by “the boundaries of television”, yet he uses scientific analysis in an up-to-the-minute laboratory, and he is equipped with text messaging, the internet, and GPS to solve crimes (alas, no ChatGPT!).

In the novel American adaptation Elementary on CBS (2012-19), involving a fresh modern twist detailed throughout the show’s New York-based adaptation, Holmes was a recovering drug addict and former consultant to Scotland Yard. It took on a new dimension when some of the main characters, Dr Watson and Prof. Moriarty, Holmes’s companion and nemesis, were gender-swapped to become Dr Joan Watson and Jamie Moriarty, respectively. Additionally, when Jamie Moriarty deceived Holmes into falling in love with her so that she could study him, excitement and romance got entwined!

Well, what’s the next stage? A female sleuth with the surname “Holmes”? While Elona Holmes (2020) is about Holmes’s 14-year-old sister, American writer Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock Series, a Victorian-set mystery series, is about Charlotte Holmes, who solves mysteries as “Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective”. Beginning with A Study in Scarlet Women (2016), the seventh book of the series was published this year.

And Miss Sherlock, an HBO Asia Japanese series from 2018, portrayed both Holmes and Dr Watson as female. Here “consulting detective” Sara “Sherlock” Shelly Futaba is solving various mysteries in modern-day Tokyo, and she is assisted by her flatmate, Dr Wato Tachibana. Well, I could have missed any notable adaptation where Holmes is portrayed as a female and Dr Watson as a male.

Thus, Holmes is always adapting to new lifestyles, technologies, geographic locations, societal practices, norms and values, styles, and sexual orientations. We cannot even imagine how the transformation will occur in the near future. However, whether the adventures of Sherlock or Charlotte take place in London, New York, or Tokyo, the captivating universe of Sherlock Holmes remains intact. Without a doubt, the entertainment industry would keep on capitalising on the mystique contained in the name “Sherlock Holmes”.

The writer is professor of statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata