Rewatching the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmeses on BBC2 (Sat) has been fun for many reasons:
Such as Brett’s fabulous-absurd performances – his Holmes-method seems to have been, rather than play it small for the cameras, to take Victorian stage-melodrama techniques and do them in FULL, except in SLOW MOTION
Or knowing the stories off by heart now, which i didn’t in the early 80s, so there’s the pleasure of guessing why, screen-dramatically, this or that addition to the story has been made…
I’d totally forgotten that Charles Gray played Holmes’s older/smarter/fatter/lazier brother Mycroft. The main villain in The Greek Interpreter was doing an outrageous Peter Lorre imitation; the concluding train sequence was doing an only slightly less outrageous Night of the Demon imitation, except because it was colour they could light all the engine steam with glaring crimson spotlights.
U&K: Brett’s representation of the arrogant contempt and impatience Holmes feels towards most of the rest of humanity (esp.gurls obv) – this is high wicked comedy.