Midweek Mention - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Red-Headed League

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Dan: elementary.

Sidey: This is I think the first mid week of there isn't a movie.

Dan: Is it

Reegs: No. 'cause we did invincible and that

Sidey: Oh we did, yeah, we did

Reegs: dunno if it

Dan: well, it's a rarity.

Sidey: It's an episode of television. Yeah

Dan: it's the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The, I took the I T v Grenada

Sidey: Yeah, it is actually a Granada thing,

Dan: Yeah. It's from the eighties, I think around about 84 till.

Sidey: Ninety

Dan: 94 is it? It ran a fair while and for me I chose this because I love Sherlock Holmes I love this series and Jeremy Brett in this is the definitive Sherlock for me.

He is the one whenever I'm reading a book about Sherlock. He's he's in my mind I think he just captures him brilliantly and you've got Edward Hardwick as Yeah, so, and there's all kinds of people that pop up in this particular episode that you might recognize from British television of, of the day.

Sidey: That's right. But this isn't episode one,

Dan: No, we, we, we've gone in. They're all in this series. There is around 60 Sherlock Holmes stories, and it was over 40 of them were made for these hour long episodes.

Sidey: you it's

Dan: just pan them all out. Dramatize them

Sidey: is, is Season 1, Episode 12. That's right. But sometimes, I couldn't find more than 7 episodes in Season 1.

Reegs: Yeah. it?

was the fifth episode of season

Sidey: Right, okay.

Reegs: Right, okay. The first two seasons were released as a 12 part thing, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I think. But yeah, it depended on which

Sidey: you look at.

Dan: yeah, it depends which one you look at.

Reegs: Did you choose this one for a, for a particular reason this

Dan: no they're all good. They're all good and they're all stand alone. This one and the last one are a little bit more linked because they chase Moriarty.

Reegs: I was about to say, was this the introduction? We'll get into it, I guess, but was this the introduction of Moriarty?

Dan: you hear his name before and there's the occasional flash, I think, in earlier ones, but this is the first speaking part, I think, that we get a Moriarty.

Reegs: Sherlock Holmes' nemesis.

Dan: yeah, there may have been another, another story, but with them in, but it's they're all fantastic. Anyway, I, I, I love the stories, as I said, and I think this is the best dramatization of them.

So, this is the Red Headed League, and... It's a weird one. It's a mystery. It's kind of just confounded everybody.

Reegs: You know, about persecution of ginger people, so that's

Dan: well, it opens out is everyone every episode does with the kind of title music and you've got a horse and carriage come around the corner. Some kids looking through the windows of an antique shop and getting told off by a policeman, a proper old Bobby in behind.

And and normally there's the The clip of the horses and the carts as they're going down the street and everything. And we, we find ourselves in this kind of weird, well, this street, you see the red headed guy just looking over and there's people milling around in the street and they go up talking

Reegs: He's a man, he's observing some goings on at the bank, basically, isn't he? Some guys, some documentation coming out to some guys. And then there's like a note passed backwards and forwards and some bonds or something.

You're not really sure, receipts maybe. And then they go, he follows and watches the stagecoach go around to the back of the bank eventually. And some stuff being unloaded in some chests. And then the policeman, like, really surreptitiously drops a p a piece of paper on the floor, which the guy collects.

Dan: which the guy collects. But don't we see Moriarty's

Reegs: he's a London

Dan: hands, don't

Sidey: Well, don't we see Moriarty's hands? Don't we see the, we see the note delivered and it's like a, just a shot of someone at a desk and he is got these awful long nails,

Dan: Yeah, pointed kind

Sidey: a fucking demon's hands. Yeah. And it

Reegs: 60, 000 in gold or something on it.

Sidey: and that's why then we go to Sherlock's

Dan: Sherlock.

Reegs: of, he's got this like, massive ginger comb

Sidey: It's an incredible comb over.

Dan: yeah, that's right. This is Jabez. So he's the pawnbroker and he's got huge ginger sideburns, a massive kind of really red. Carrot red kind of iron brew red comb over.

Reegs: and you'd recognize this guy, this actor.

I mean, the one that really stood out to me was in the King's Speech. But also, of course, he was in National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2, The Rise of Taj. So like real caliber of, but there is some great Shakespearean actors in this.

Dan: actors. There, there are. Well he, he's gone and tells them that his young assistant this Vincent, Had urged him to respond to a

Reegs: had urged him to respond to... Oh, well, hang on. Yeah, hang on. We get, we get Holmes, don't we? Doing all his deductive reasoning. He does a load of stuff about, all the great stuff where he he, he tells Wilson a whole load of stuff about him. He's done manual labour at some point in his life. He's been to China.

He's done a lot of writing recently.

Dan: That, that's right. Watson comes in and he, he leaps over the chair and says, Watson, come in, come in.

And he goes, ah, and then proceeds to tell him about this guy who can't believe he knows everything that he does. And then he tells him why and gives him that. Oh, it's not so clever once you know, isn't it? Which insults Holmes. And he goes, I'll have to remember not to tell anybody in the future. But.

He's got it all right and they think that after he tells the story of him basically being told to go to A house where an office where he has to write out the

Reegs: Well, he sees an advert from, it's the estate of Isaiah Thompson or something who will come to find out a little bit,

Sidey: it, his assistant pushes him towards it, his

Reegs: Yeah, his assistant, his his assistant, who is a photographer and spends hours in the basement developing his photographs, pushes him towards this advert that he sees in the paper.

That's been put there. This ginger guy who wants to make life easier for one ginger person in the

Dan: at a time So they're

Reegs: they go to this, this, I loved this. I really, I loved this scene. It's four pounds a week and they take him to this office and it's just corridor after corridor of ginger fellas. The most ginger people you've ever seen.

Cris: you should call them red headed men.

Reegs: is that right? I'm

Cris: It's red headed league, so, so,

Dan: the red headed men, correct Chris. So they're all queued up responding to this ad

Reegs: But it was like, it was sort of like the Matrix, you know, the burly brawl where all the agents miss, but this was just all red headed, like men, urchins. There's

Sidey: Burley Brawl where all red, auburn, strawberry blonde, and whatever. And they say, do they not say to him, you've got the, the the

Reegs: You're the best. The

Sidey: the best

Reegs: the best redheaded person I've ever seen. And

Sidey: But, but really his,

Reegs: 'cause it, it's like, was it a wig? He pulls it.

Sidey: his is really more facial hair because the strands across his head are, it's

Reegs: it's just a comb over the thing on.

Sidey: it's, if you think about that old character from what's his face that had

Reegs: Yeah, yeah.

Sidey: it is that it's wiggly.

Dan: Yeah, it's, a rabb's teeth.

Sidey: enough strands to make a convincing comb over. I mean, it's dreadful when he wears a hat. he looks very like you wouldn't know because he yeah he has got like the mutton chops and all that the bugger grips whatever you want to call them but when he takes the hat off you're like that's

Dan: But as soon, as soon as a guy called Duncan Ross, who's actually Mr. Wilson yeah, I don't believe it. Mr. Meldrew sees him. He's like, this is perfect. You are just the person

Sidey: so ginger

Dan: And he tells everyone the position is closed.

Then no one's happy about that. But

Reegs: Hopkins, that was the guy's

Dan: yeah.

Reegs: Ross's, Ross's employer, the one who benef the benefactor of the red headed league.

Dan: so he explains his story and the work is menial but he has to be there at the same time whether he's sick Whether he's whatever he needs to be there all the time and it's from 10 Brilliant yeah 10 till 2 he's getting paid four pound a week

Reegs: pound a wheat

Dan: still got the art He's got an assistant.

He's gonna help keep the other business running his business

Sidey: happy days. But you've got to buy your own paper, doesn't he say?

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: He's got to buy his own paper as he explodes to and well they, Holmes and, and Watson kind of laugh at him, but he assures him that by Monday it will be fixed.

Sidey: of laughing at him,

Dan: you

Sidey: he assures him

Reegs: Yeah. And

Sidey: Monday it will

Reegs: Oh, that's because they, because when they eventually, cause he goes he keeps going back to work and then one day and they're paying him every Saturday and all that. And then one day he turns up and the redheaded league has been dissolved and he asks the light landlord of the building or what's going on.

And the guy doesn't have a clue, but directs him to this other address of somebody who had rented the building and they've been, they are a

Dan: kneecaps.

Sidey: Fake kneecaps? kneecaps, yes,

Reegs: manufacturer of artificial knee caps. Yes. Amazing. Yeah.

Sidey: So yeah, Watson loses

Reegs: that's when they're losing their shit. It's

Sidey: and Holmes is able to calm down, he's like, but then he's like, he starts thinking about it.

And he starts, obviously, getting a picture of what's that, you know, obviously, because you're what? Oh, well. Speak for myself. I was watching and thinking this is a fucking weird,

Dan: Yeah. Well, it's a three. It's a three pipe problem in the end,

Reegs: I've never empathized with somebody more when he said that

Sidey: But it's a weird, you know, there's no murder it's like, you know, you where's this going because this is like real small Fish for Sherlock Holmes

Dan: Holmes. Yeah. But he's

Sidey: he starts to think about it and he gets intrigued and he fucks him off and he says don't worry we'll sort it out we'll have it solved for you by Monday morning and then he sits down and that's when he says yeah this is a three pipe problem and I implore you Watson please don't speak to me for the next 45 minutes and he just sits there and smokes his pipe it's a hell of a pipe yeah

Reegs: warden, oh, do you know what his three pipes are? I've got the detail on that if you're interested. This is what he has. He has, he starts off with a short stemmed briar. Then he has a long stemmed cherry wood and finishes it off with a very well used clay at the end.

Dan: Ah, that's the secret. Well, that comes up with the the possible theory and solution because he, he springs up, he wakes Watson up who's dozing at the chair, and and they're out the door down by the, the strand and, and

Reegs: Like a hyperactive toddler he

Dan: He he really is. Yeah. Banging

Reegs: his stick on the floor, and he's, like, prancing around and looking up

Dan: he goes to the pawnbroker's house, and or business, and the assistant's just closing up, and he asks him, Oh, could you tell me the way to the Strand

Reegs: It's only fucking, what's his jobs from Blackadder as well.

Sidey: Tim McInnery, yeah. Also, not just Blackadder, he's fucking amazing in Blackadder. He also was in Kate Bush did a video for every track on Hands of Love and he's in every single one of those. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, so, there you go.

Dan: he's kind of knocks on the on the floor with the cane and walks across the street and waits till he's gone and Holmes never knows what's going on he's always like three or four steps behind really and he just can't figure it out even though he's getting pretty good by this stage Watson sorry yeah to to deduce what's going on he's still steps

Sidey: I thought in this actually, I did think, fucking hell, Watson's like pretty clued

Dan: Yeah, he's, he's, he's a few stories in now. But right from the beginning, he's, he's a buffoon, you know, and he's amazed by the, the, the observant qualities of Holmes. He can just tell somebody he's been to China writing, you know, long periods and everything. But yeah, he started a piece it together. Now he's starting to get to look at the.

The geography of the street and, and, and what else might be around but Holmes is way off the scent

Reegs: You think?

Dan: Watson. I keep mixing them

Reegs: up.

Sidey: Yeah. Holmes, Holmes obviously has got it figured out. He's not forthcoming with, with like just explicitly saying, this is what the plan is

Reegs: Actually, no, it's gotta be more theater.

Sidey: Yeah, exactly.

Reegs: so he gets the police inspector. Is this, is it rad? I

Sidey: Lestrade?

No, it's not. It's Jones.

Reegs: isn't it?

And there's already a bit of a sort of I think he describes him as basically being a bit incompetent pretty much and there's a bit of an attitude towards him, but he tell, he convenes him and the director of the bank, Meriwether, together, and they go to the bank together, and he's like, this bank's going to be robbed.

Dan: Really the bank manager's really not not

Sidey: I've got, there's only two keys. I've got one. The other guy's got one in his safe. And the

Dan: missing my night at the club for this, it's a disgrace, but Holmes is convinced they've been tunneling.

Sidey: He's like listening against the wall and against pillars and he's just waiting for that noise and he's Everyone else, they obviously know why they're there but they're just convinced that he's fucking barked

Reegs: They don't really know why but he tells them to be quiet and not to interfere and he gives them the most withering stare I think I've ever seen.

Cris: the police officer kind of backs him quite,

Sidey: he does say

Cris: thoroughly.

He says, Whatever Mr. Holmes wants. You should listen to him.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: And, and they do, and they sit there in the, in the dark until

Sidey: Well, he gets the bank manager, Mr. Merriweather, is it? That's right. He explains what those cases are that we saw right at the start. It's 60, 000

Cris: the

Reegs: gold. Gold coins, yeah, from a French bank.

And they, they had basically, they were carrying a higher stock than they normally would, essentially.

Sidey: They wanted to expand, or they wanted to do something, and so they borrowed against their own stuff, and it's all very banky. But what it means is that on this particular occasion, their fucking vault is full of gold.

Cris: It's also very cool that all these coins are covered in kitchen foil.

Dan: yeah, individually kind of wrapped almost,

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Because I didn't...

Reegs: to

Cris: They're ready to go into the oven. They look ready to go into

Sidey: I didn't know what they meant by Napoleons.

Cris: That's the

Sidey: So I was, yeah, but I didn't really know that. I was, when he's talking about gold and I was expecting to see like bullion or something, do you know what I mean? And he opens it and he's like, oh, they look like quarters or whatever, do you know what I mean?

But obviously there's a, there's a lot of value because it's, I

Dan: fine gold.

Sidey: green.

Reegs: but Holmes already a deduced that it would be there also. He's deduced who is coming,

Dan: And, and who is, and who is pulling the strings because you start to hear Moriarty's name. You think Clay's good, but I don't think he's the one that's, that's put all this together.

And there's two of them anyway. One of them's Clay, who's the assistant. And he's. He's been schooled at eating, so, Watson, bring the gun.

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sidey: It's quite comedic, because there's literally just four of them waiting, like, looking, because they hear the noise, and then, like, a tile smashes, and

Reegs: a guy pops up. Hello!

Sidey: and he lifts the tile up, and it's like, fuck, they're right.

Dan: Yeah, and

Reegs: So that's where Clay, Clay gets taken in then, and the other one runs off, and they have, like, this big bar like, fight in the pawnbrokers, where it Yeah, everything's getting smashed to shit.

Sidey: But Clay's like, well, listen it says to the police officer, you know, you address me as sir and you say please and thank you. I'm of royal

Dan: He's got royal blood.

Sidey: and he's very obliging. He does do it all. So he's kind of like, okay, goes on his way. Yeah, he's a. Nephew of the Duke, or something

Dan: well that, that's right. He's a Oxford educated grandson of a royal Duke considered by homes to be the fourth smartest man in London.

So,

Sidey: He doesn't seem that smart.

Dan: No, well, you wouldn't extra homes. He, he. Got his number and managed to catch him and he asks as he's leaving. He goes tell me mr Moriarty have anything to do with this and he goes I'd keep that name off your lips to confirm homes is

Cris: Suspicions.

Dan: exactly

Reegs: Yeah. So the plan foiled Moriarty gives Richard Wilson a load of shit but then kind of confesses a grudging admiration of, of Holmes.

I think he says this is the third time that Holmes is fucked with him. And now he's considering having him killed or something. Words to that effect.

Cris: He's either gonna stay away or stand back or something like that. One of these quotes

Reegs: then back with old Al Portley porn broker, Jabez Wilson, he's gif Watson gifts him 50 sovereigns from the bank as compensation for his trauma, and then chides him for not paying his staff enough, which I enjoyed, that was a good touch.

And then at the end, we get a great little bit of home smoking a ciggy, just Basically explaining how he knew it all, all the clues, all the little bits and pieces that as a viewer you have been constantly alerted to as well if you, if you want to play along as well, the, the script is great and the camera is great at telling you what to pay attention to

Dan: at telling you what the period pieces and everything, you know. It's really the attention to detail and the costume and all the props around. It looks gorgeous.

Reegs: just quickly just get the thing that he explains how he knew that the, he knew that the photographer was a ruse, the developing for, for photographs was tunneling underneath the pawnbroker's street, and he confirmed that by tapping his cane, all that shit, and also he saw mud on the knees of clay, and he deduced when he, when The porn broker said about the earrings that it, who it was and blah, blah, blah,

Cris: And the acid stain and all that, yeah. That's

Reegs: right. Yeah.

Cris: You know what's also very interesting because... I find it quite funny to hear you talking about it. That's why I didn't say anything or anything really is because I've read, as I said to you earlier, I was in hospital not too long ago. And one of the audio books that was free was the advantage of Sherlock Holmes.

And this was one of the stories that I listened to and I've read it before anyway. So. I really enjoyed it and I'm probably going to watch all the, I've never watched this before, but I'm going to watch all the episodes because this is exactly what happens in the book. And the script is basically pretty much a copy of the book.

Dan: It's really close.

They do. That's why I say it's a great

Cris: it's not much, it's not much difference really. And that's exactly how Watson is in the book. He's very clever, but not as clever as Sherlock Holmes. So he's always a little bit behind, but he's always. He has powers of deduction for himself. He's, you know, Holmes always does something with a certain purpose and then you end up at the end with all these little explanations.

And it's exactly the way... The movie goes or the, or the episode goes, that's exactly how you would, you would find it in the book. And even the, most of the quotes, the important ones at least, are exactly how you would read them in the book. So I, I thought it was brilliant. Yeah,

Reegs: And it's fun to play along as you watch, because you can, I think, you know, when you're paying attention, you can put it all together, it's all there for you yeah.

Dan: Yeah. and there's, there's loads of these as well. There's only 40 episodes. So you can get box sets and all the rest, which I've had in my, in my time. I've seen them all. I'll watch them all again at some point. I actually watched the final problem after this. And, and

Sidey: is that is that the Reichenbach?

Dan: that's the Reichenbach falls with Moriarty.

And the one after that I've started again, which is the empty house, which is the return of, of

Sidey: Yeah, I've seen, because this is... If you've ever had time off work sick or whatever, this is kind of like

Dan: ITV3 sort

Sidey: ITV three sort of thing. It just crops up. I've so I've seen a few over the years but I hadn't seen this one before but you're like you say all the period detail or the I haven't maybe I haven't seen every single depiction of homes ever but Jerry Brett for me is like it's

Dan: is there for

Sidey: head and shoulders for everyone else.

I love it. He's like, he just fucking nails it the way he speaks. Ah, it's just so good. So, so

Dan: He's like, he just the presence of him, you know, his, his actual physical attributes just look like Sherlock does anyway, and

Reegs: He has his sort of mania side down quite well, and that is possibly because Jeremy Brett suffered from depression and

Dan: yeah, and, and right at the end, I think it's the, the Prince Nasrin stone or something.

He's really ill, you can see that he's, yeah, he's, it was the last kind of times he was caught on film or anything, you know, in this but he's still puts in, you know, still

Sidey: still gives

Dan: still still gives it a 10, outta 10, so, If you want to know what all Sherlock Holmes is like, and as Chris said, you know, it's something that's close to the books because there's other adaptations

Sidey: Well, we're going to watch one

Dan: We're

Sidey: film, which is obviously Sherlock content, but quite far removed,

Dan: going to the character, but a different story or a different take on it.

Reegs: was going to give my verdict on the best Sherlock in the main thing

Sidey: yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Dan: Oh yeah, well we'll have to tune in for that, but as for this one, it's a winner.

Cris: Oh yes, yeah, definitely.

Sidey: strong. Genuinely a strong recommend.