In this lost, live television play, Sherlock Holmes resorts to theatrical misdirection to retrieve a stolen government diamond.
Dr. Watson (Philip King) arrives at 221B Baker Street to find his friend Sherlock Holmes (Andrew Osborn) under threat of assassination. Holmes is investigating the theft of the priceless Mazarin Stone and believes the culprit, the dangerous Count Negretto Sylvius (Frank Cariello), is preparing to make an attempt on his life. To outwit the criminal, Holmes places a lifelike wax replica of himself in the bay window as a decoy. He then sends Watson for the police and, under cover of disguise, confronts the Count and his accomplice, Sam Merton (Martin Boddey), tricking them into revealing the diamond’s location.
Broadcast live from the studio, this is one of the earliest known television adaptations of a Sherlock Holmes story. The production is a historical curiosity, an example of a dramatic format that left no room for error from either cast or crew. The teleplay, adapted by Anthony Cope, is based on one of the few Holmes stories written in the third person, which was itself derived from a one-act stage play, “The Crown Diamond,” co-written by Conan Doyle. As no recording of the broadcast is known to exist, the play survives only as a programme listing, a lost artefact from the pioneering age of British television and a footnote in the long screen history of Baker Street’s most famous resident.
Broadcast: BBC, 1 Episode, 29 July 1951
Adapted by: Anthony Cope
Based on the story by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Play Production by: Alan Bromly
Main Cast: Andrew Osborn (Sherlock Holmes), Philip King (Doctor Watson), Frank Cariello (Count Negretto Sylvius), Martin Boddey (Sam Merton), Felix Felton (Lord Cantlemere), Jeremy Spenser (Billy)
