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Holmes is struck down by a rare tropical disease, and death
seems imminent. His only hope lies in a planter from Sumatra,
whose expert knowledge comes at a price...
Previously
released on audiocassette, and now available on CD for the
first time, this volume collects the Radio 4 dramatisations
of The Dying Detective, The Disappearance of Lady
Frances Carfax, The Devil's Foot and His Last
Bow. Each of the four discs within the pack contains a
single 45-minute episode - so perhaps it would have been more
user-friendly to label the discs with the titles, rather than
CD 1, CD 2, etc.
However you label it, The Dying Detective is a most
unusual case. Holmes (Clive Merrison) never leaves his study
during the course of the story, since he is laid up with the
symptoms of a tropical illness. Yet he still succeeds in capturing
a murderer. Merrison's performance as the ailing detective
makes a stark contrast to his usual assuredness.
This
is a memorable and riveting episode, even though the concluding
twist is a little predictable.
At Holmes' request, Watson travels to Switzerland in search
of a missing aristocrat, but the trail leads back to a funeral
parlour in London...
You
may wonder why Sherlock Holmes is getting coverage on a science-fiction
website. Well, apart from the fact that we review a lot of
things that aren't strictly sci-fi (generally because we like
them!), there is enormous sci-fi crossover appeal in the character,
particularly for fans of Doctor Who.
The
good Doctor, an eccentric, super-intelligent, anti-establishment
figure, usually accompanied by a more down-to-earth companion,
owes a great deal to Holmes. The detective's adventures were
pastiched in the Tom Baker story The
Talons of Weng-Chiang and the Seventh Doctor
actually met him in the novel All-Consuming Fire.
One-time Who writer Peter Ling dramatises The Disappearance
of Lady Frances Carfax, in which - as in The Hound
of the Baskervilles - Holmes dispatches Watson (Michael
Williams) to investigate the case in this stead.
In
both this and the next story, The Devil's Foot, an
outwardly scary and seemingly evil man proves to be not so
bad after all. Such repetition might indicate that Conan Doyle
was running out of ideas by this point.
Watson enforces a relaxing holiday on Holmes to cure his
exhaustion. But the eerie Cornish coast provides the opposite
effect when death strikes a local family...
The Devil's Foot is also repetitive in its use of an
ailing Holmes, so soon after The Dying Detective.
However,
there's more crossover appeal here for Doctor Who fans,
who can relish the presence of Geoffrey Beevers as Roundhay.
He played the emaciated Master on TV in The Keeper of Traken
and on audio in Dust
Breeding and Master.
Clive Merrison himself is, of course, no stranger to Who
fans, having appeared in The
Tomb of the Cybermen and Paradise Towers
(it's not very often that those two stories are mentioned
in the same breath!).
The
casting of Patrick Allen, well known for his stern vocal roles
in the comedy series The Black Adder and The Smell
of Reeves and Mortimer, as Sterndale provides some unintentional
humour. As do Holmes and Watson's almost pornographic gasps
of exertion as they hike along the Cornish coast. This after
Holmes' unforgettably gay line in The Dying Detective:
"Quick, man, if you love me!"
Holmes is lured out of retirement to help his country on
the eve of World War I...
His
Last Bow is, like The Dying Detective, a refreshing
change from the norm. Not much actual detection takes place,
but instead we are presented with an intriguingly non-linear
narrative that flashes back and forth around the events surrounding
Holmes' recruitment by the British government.
This,
of course, is not actually Holmes' last bow, any more than
The Final Problem was his final problem. The famous
consulting detective - and the ever-reliable Merrison - would
return in The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes.
Richard
McGinlay
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