#carleton hobbs

A little foreword before i delve into the rating.

It was very naive of me to think that I would find a myriad adaptations of ‘The empty house’ or at the very least bits and pieces of it sprinkled in elsewhere. One would think that the exhilarating terror of ‘The final problem’ and the subsequent triumph of ‘The empty house’ would be enough to draw in the audience. Alas!

Out of a gazillion different adaptations i’ve managed to find less than a dozen surviving & readily available (One is lost, another is not available to the public though preserved in the National Film and Television Archive of the British Film Institute) that establish Sherlock’s death and his consequent ‘resurrection’.

Other versions, such as Christopher Lee’s Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes and the leading lady; Sherlock Holmes and the incident at Victoria falls) or Douglas Wilmer and Peter Cushing’s Sherlock Holmes never really ventured into that territory, either by the peculiarities of the adaptation (CL’s Sherlock is retired and follows a completely original storyline) or by not engaging with Moriarty’s subplot at all (There’s no ‘The final problem’ in PC’s Sherlock). I also won’t be talking about RDJ’s Sherlock or Enola Holmes movies for obvious reasons.

So, without further ado, I present to you my rating.

1. The empty house, Granada Sherlock Holmes, 10/10

Utter perfection. No notes. Watson’s gentle slide against the wall, followed by the blurred vision of Holmes’ kind face and outstretched hands, the undone collar of our unconscious doctor’s shirt and the tender caress of his face as Sherlock seems to familiarise himself with his dear companions’ features once again. There’s no straight way to interpret it all and bless god there isn’t! It’s all very vulnerable and private, as if we - the viewers - are witnessing something that was supposed to belong to these two only.

Also of note are deliciously rolled R’s and fake teeth on Holmes’ part. That disguise would work wonders on me, it’s too good.

2. The empty hearse, BBC Sherlock, 5/10

A drag. A very early-to-mid 2010’s contrarian attempt at ‘subverting’ the expectations in the most dated way imaginable.

‘Listeeen but what if Watson fucking strangles Sherlock instead of being so out of it he faints’ ‘No no no what if he strangles him. And then strangles him again. And THEN headbutts him.’ ‘My god, mate, that is a brilliant fucking idea!’ mr Moffat, probably.

Sherlock draws a flimsy moustache and puts some glasses on as a ‘disguise’. John lunches at Sherlock, enraged. Twice. Then finally aims for the nose and draws blood. There’s no fainting. 3 points for the hilariously lazy accent banana cucumber puts on.

I’ll admit that I have a very severe case of love-hate relationship with bbc Sherlock and while I utterly loathe this scene as an adaptation of ACD’s work, I actually quite like this take as a standalone, divorced from any previous connotations of who exactly are Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. To put it bluntly, it works only if you willingly forget everything you previously knew about John and Sherlock and their canonically established relationship.

3. The tiger hunt, Soviet Sherlock 8/10

Sensationaly dramatic. Watson is grieving, playing his late friend’s violin and shedding sorry tears when his sulking is rudely interrupted by an old book collector (another incredible disguise, works like a charm). Our doctor faints upon seeing his companion in a cartoonish two-legs-up style and Mrs Hudson follows suit (no legs up, she’s fainted properly like any Edwardian lady would). Sherlock covers their entire faces with gauze sprinkled with ammonia to revive them. A sweet group hug follows as teary-eyed Watson & Mrs Hudson cling to Holmes and cry on his shoulders. Sherlock’s very empathetic about it all.

4. The spider woman, Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes, 4/10

Really neither here nor there, nothing exceptional. Watson is only mildly surprised as if his dearest friend rising from the dead is an everyday occurrence. Lestrade’s only reaction is a joke. Watson plopls down on a chair and has a go at Holmes' flask. No fainting. It’s all rather stiff and bland but then again I guess that's just how things were in 40s mid-war Hollywood movies.

5. The adventure of the empty house, Sherlock Holmes in the XXII century, 4/10

What is it with adaptations and treating Holmes’ death as such an ordinary thing. Really a bore but I’m being too harsh as it’s just a cartoon. The only effect Sherlock's reappearance has on Watson makes him look like a frog for a few frames. Bonus points for the cartoonishly(tomato, tomato) theatrical Sherlock reveal as he disposes of his disguise with a wave of his hand.

6. The empty house, Sherlock Holmes BBC radio drama with Carleton Hobbs, 7/10

Despite the obvious limitations of radio dramas, this was quite a delight to listen to. Watson falls unconscious mid-sentence with a comical thud and a dramatic musical accompaniment and comes to his senses via a very apologetic Holmes reviving him with a mix of water & brandy. Our doctor is visibly quite shaken (rightfully so!) and very touched. Holmes is as gentle as they come. A very good adaptation.

7. The adventure of the empty house, Sherlock Holmes radio show, 9/10

Dark Places (1974)

"You still think that money is here, don't you?"

"I know it is. And so do you, otherwise you'd have sold up the estate long ago."

"You have no right to Andrew Marr's money."

The one that gets it right

There is really not a lot more to say about this one. 

But I assume that’s what happens when the BBC finally gets off their asses and commissions the first British radio adaptation of the entire canon.

Carleton Hobbs and Norman Shelley portrayed Holmes and Watson from 1952 to 1969, and performed every story of the canon but four: YELL, GLOR, CREE, and VEIL. 

They are the longest running duo to portray these characters in the history of Sherlockian radio plays.

Hobbs may be familiar to you because of other Sherlockian projects: He was the Watson to Arthur Wontner’s Holmes in the 1943 adaptation of BOSC, and in 1972 played Doyle for the radio programme “Conan Doyle Investigates (The Edalji Case)”.

Donning his deerstalker, he was also there as Sherlock Holmes to unveil the bronze plaque celebrating the fateful meeting of Watson and Stamford in the Criterion on January 3, 1953.

Norman Shelley is not really known for other Sherlockian projects – you may, however, recognise him as the Winnie-the-Pooh of the BBC Children’s Hour adaptation.

The availability of recordings for this adaptation is an interesting one: While the first series of the show is considered to be lost, the later episodes are available in various forms, ranging from quite bad radio quality to excellent CD quality. BBC Radio 4 also tends to rerun all the cases once in a while, so you may catch 3GAR on there again soon. A recording of the original old time radio broadcast can be found here – including the atmospheric music that’s missing from most CD releases: (x)

This version of The Three Garridebs first aired on September 4, 1964, and then was performed again in 1967.

In my opinion, looking at the radio adaptations, only Clive Merrison and Michael Williams can compete with the Holmes-Watson-chemistry those two have: It is absolutely delightful to listen to them. 

Holmes is very suave, but also doesn’t withhold a chuckle whenever the urge comes over him (which is quite often, especially thanks to Watson being incredibly funny and sassy). There are a lot of jokes, and a lot of bantering. Both characters are very humanised and approachable – which may also be due to the fact that the language was slightly modernised.

The adaptation itself is very much true to the book: Watson’s introduction to the case is almost taken word for word from the opening lines of the story.

One of the tiny changes they did make is a quite interesting one, though. When Watson gets shot, Holmes does not angrily turn towards Killer Evans to yell at him, but beats him unconscious and, very breathlessly and almost panicking, turns to Watson:

HOLMES: If he’d killed you, Watson, he’d never have left this room alive.

Holmes is so very relieved when Watson reassures him that it’s nothing, it is almost heartwarming.

Suffice it to say: It is possibly my favourite adaptation of this story, as a whole.

Also because they added a nice little touch for the end of the episode: As the paragraph re “it was worth a wound, it was worth many wounds” is very difficult to adapt as lines of dialogue, some adaptations end up cutting these lines completely – which is a shame!

In this one, Watson gets to say them out loud, at the end, as a recap on the entire adventure. It’s a great way to include this bit, almost like Nigel Bruce did it, except he did it in the beginning of the episode.

(There is one adaptation that’s got yet another approach, but we’ll get to that one soon.)