Holmes renovations
As new library exhibit points out, the most famous fictional detective gets reimagined with regularity
He has been a literary hero, a movie staple, a TV phenomenon, even a board-game character.
The great thing about Sherlock Holmes is that he’s in the public domain, so any writer can use him without getting sued.
Starting Saturday, the Toronto Reference Library will host the exhibit Pop
Sherlock! using material from the library’s Arthur Conan Doyle collection to pay tribute to the many creators who have used the world’s greatest detective in ways Doyle never would have dreamed.
For every reasonably faithful version of the world’s most famous fictional sleuth — from the Robert Downey Jr. movies to TV series starring Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller — there’s one that upends our expectations. The official web page for the exhibit features a music-hall song that begins “I’m Sherlock Holmes, the man of mystery,” and a Japanese maneki
neko figurine that portrays Holmes as a cute kitten with a pipe.
Here are a few other ways Holmes has been revisited, reimagined and revised. You can’t do any of this with James Bond or Harry Potter. Most incompetent version: Michael Caine in Without a Clue, the 1988 film that reveals it was actually Dr. James Watson who did all the crime solving and hired an actor to play the detective. Like everyone in the ’80s, he hired Caine. Best crossover: Neil Gaiman’s 2003 short story A Study in Emerald mixes the characters from the Holmes stories with the supernatural monster mythos from H.P. Lovecraft’s horror tales. There hasn’t been a more powerful mystery/horror mash-up since Scooby-Doo. Most frustrating: The 1980s board game Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, reissued with new cases this year. The only way to win is to solve cases using fewer clues and leads than Holmes does . . . which means the more you enjoy the game, the more he is likely to beat you. Shortest-lived musical fad: The early days of the Benedict Cumberbatch series inspired a number of original online songs, known to fans as “Shrock.” One creator was called the 221B Band, while another song explained: “I wanna live at 221B/The rent is excellent, assassins come for tea.” Best fan theory: In P.G. Wodehouse’s short story “From a Detective’s Notebook,” published in 1959, a detective of that era makes a plausible case that the arch-criminal Professor Moriarty was actually Holmes in disguise. This explains why Holmes never seemed to care if he got paid for his detective work. Oldest version: In a 1980s issue of the comic book Detective, Batman meets Holmes, who is still alive due to what he describes as “a certain distillation of royal jelly . . . and the rarified (sic) atmosphere of Tibet.” Best gender swap: The Gemini award-winning series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes (1997-2000) presented Meredith Henderson as a spunky Canadian mystery-solving teenager who is actually Sherlock Holmes’s descendant. But she’s only his great-grandniece, so they’re not saying Holmes ever had sex. Most deranged Holmes fan: The film They Might Be Giants ( 1971) stars George C. Scott as a man who proclaims himself to be Sherlock Holmes and appoints the movie’s female lead, whose name is Watson, to be his sidekick. And yes, that’s where the band name comes from. Worst origin story: In the 2002 TV movie Sherlock: Case of Evil, James D’Arcy plays a sexy Holmes in his 20s who is driven to fight crime because Moriarty got his brother Mycroft hooked on drugs. This time, you see, it’s personal. Best Pun: The 1965 Broadway musical Baker Street, which had its world premiere in Toronto, ended its first act with Moriarty singing: “I shall mourn as I have never mourned before/When the stately Holmes of England is no more.”
Pop Sherlock! is in the TD Gallery of the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St., Aug. 19 to Oct. 22.