by Gary Lovisi
Hamstrung in Hampton
* * * *
Dear Hamstrung,
I wouldn’t spend too much time trying to make up between these two; obviously, your girlfriend is in love with Nigel. She is also clearly unbalanced. In fact, if I were you I would sell your house quickly and move away from Hampton and leave no forwarding address.
With sympathy,
Mrs Hudson
* * * *
Dear Mrs Hudson,
I have a dog question for you. My poodle insists on peeing on my husband’s best shoes. We tried hiding the shoes, but little Puddles always finds them, drags them out of their hiding place and piddles on them. If we put them up high then she finds his Wellies or something else of his and pees on them. My husband is threatening to poison her and I am very worried. The last time he made a threat like this my neighbor’s child disappeared and is still missing.
I’ve noticed he recently purchased a rather large supply of rat poison, and we don’t have any rodents in all at our house. What should I do?
Frightened in Ferncliffe
* * * *
Dear Frightened,
First of all, shame on you for owning a French breed of dog. You should get something wholesome and thoroughly British like a bulldog or a retriever, or even a terrier. But a poodle! I can’t imagine what self-respecting English woman would go to town with a curly-haired little scrap of a dog like that; personally, I’d be ashamed to show my face at my local green grocer if I owned a poodle. Your dog is probably exacting revenge in the sneaky way any French person would—clearly her motivation is political. So getting rid of the dog is the obvious solution.
As for your husband, I would be tempted to ditch him at the same time. I’ve noticed that poisoning can become a nasty habit, and someone who is comfortable poisoning dogs and children will likely not hesitate to move on to doing away with his spouse, should you displease him in any way. I suggest moving to Hampton—I have reason to believe that a house there will soon become available at a good price.
A votre service,
Mrs Hudson
* * * *
Dear Mrs Hudson,
I am becoming concerned about my brother-in-law. I mean, I’m as patriotic as the next fellow, but Roger’s attachment to the Royal Family goes beyond all rhyme and reason. He not only attends every public function where the Queen makes an appearance, but he has started collecting Royal Family memorabilia. Plates, plaques, mugs, coins—you name it, he collects it. In fact, his collection is so extensive that the local paper has written an article about it, featuring photographs of his “Royal Collection Room.” It is growing every day, and now threatens to overtake my sister’s house, in fact—he has already filled up the study and now is threatening to move into the guest bedroom. My sister is at her wit’s end about it.
The worst part of it is that he’s not even English—he’s Canadian.
Sincerely,
Worried in Woolich
* * * *
Dear Worried,
I regret to say that there’s nothing you can do—this disease has progressed too far for a cure now. And the fact that he is Canadian makes it irreversible, I’m afraid. I also detect a note of envy in your letter—I feel I should warn you that this malady is contagious. If you find yourself in a shop looking longingly at a bust of the Queen, or a likeness of the Prince Consort, or a nicely framed needle point of the royal crest, move away quickly and do not look back. Once you succumb the first time, I’m afraid there’s nothing that can be done for you. I had a distant cousin who suffered from this highly virulent disease (God rest his soul), and he was eventually forced to move out of his house and into his tool shed. (He was Scottish, so more’s the pity.) But do heed my warning—be vigilant, and be prepared to take your sister into your own home when her husband makes hers uninhabitable.
Sincerely,
Mrs Hudson
* * * *
And now, dear readers, here are a few more recipes from my kitchen in 221 Baker Street. I do hope you like them.
* * * *
Hot Crab Sandwiches
This was passed down to me by my mother, who was a great cook. Dr Watson is especially fond of them.
1/4 cup crabmeat
1 cup diced sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup celery, diced
1/4 cup mayonnaise, homemade or store bought
1 tablespoon onion, finely diced
2 tablespoon pickle relish
3 tablespoons chili sauce
Combine ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Pile liberally on good homemade bread and bake in a 350—degree oven for twenty minutes. May be frozen and cooked for thirty minutes straight out of the freezer. Excellent with a good bottle of ale or a pint of bitters.
* * * *
Creamy Broccoli Soup
Here is an excellent recipe for broccoli soup. Sometimes when Mr Holmes comes in late at night, I have a bowl waiting for him.
2 cups water
4 cups chopped fresh broccoli
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped onion
6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups chicken broth, homemade if possible
2 cups milk (mix in some cream if you like it creamier)
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley
1 teaspoon onion salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
In a Dutch oven or soup kettle, bring water to a boil. Add broccoli, celery and carrots; boil 2—3 minutes. Drain; set vegetables aside. In the same kettle, sauté onion in butter until tender. Stir in flour to form a smooth paste. Gradually add the broth and milk, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil; boil and stir for one minute. Add vegetables and remaining ingredients. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30—40 minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
* * * *
Tuna a la Varenka
This was given to me by a charming American who lived in the wilds of New York State. Wasabi is a Japanese horse radish, very sharp. You may substitute English horseradish, but the Japanese is better.
Tuna steak or tilapia, or whatever fish you like
Homemade flour rub with fresh herbs (optional)
Sesame oil 2 tablespoons
Fresh garlic 1 teaspoon
Fresh ginger 1 teaspoon
Red or green peppers 1 cup
Onion 1 cup
Mango, fresh or canned, 1 cup w/juice
Red pepper flakes
Black pepper
Soy sauce 1/2 teaspoon
Karo syrup 2 tablespoons
Honey 2 tablespoons
Cream sherry 2 tablespoons
Dried orange peel
Dash wasabi
Sauté fish, peppers, & onions in sesame oil; add other ingredients and simmer until done. Do not overcook fish.
* * * *
In subsequent issues, I shall provide the following recipes:
• Mrs Hudson’s Finnan Haddie Recipe (passed down from my Scottish grandmother)
• Mrs Hudson’s Recipe for Bubble and Squeak (a nourishing breakfast for Mr Holmes and Dr. Watson—a favourite of theirs on Sunday mornings)
• Mrs Hudson’s Curried Lamb Shank (which kept Mr Holmes warm on cold London nights)
• Mrs Hudson’s Scotch Eggs (a favourite of Dr Watson’s)
SHERLOCK HOLMES ON RADIO, A Review by Carole Buggé
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
It is common knowledge among Sherlock Holmes fans that when his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, exhausted by the hold Holmes had over his lif
e, tried to kill him off by plunging him unceremoniously off a precipice and into the swirling waters of Reichenbach Falls, he was forced—however unwillingly—to resurrect Holmes some three years later. The clamor of a public hungry for more tales of the great detective finally induced Doyle to bring Holmes back to life in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”
Holmes had, in a sense, become Doyle’s Moriarty—his nemesis, his bete noire. The author’s own brainchild had assumed a stranglehold on his life—and, anxious to pursue what he regarded as his more “serious” work, Doyle felt there was no alternative but to do the fellow in once and for all. One is inevitably reminded of another great Edwardian master, Sir Arthur Sullivan, who suffered a lifelong frustration that his operatic collaborations with W.S. Gilbert took him away from what he regarded as his “serious” work. The irony for both men is, of course, the same: how many readers of this magazine—a subset of Doyle fans if ever there was one—have actually read The White Company? And although the music Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote outside of the famed operettas occasionally shows up on classical FM stations, it is not much of a departure from the gracefully melodic airs of The Mikado or H.M.S. Pinafore—and, lacking Gilbert’s witty, satirical lyrics, it strikes us as lilting and lovely, to be sure, but—well, slight. Together, Gilbert and Sullivan were magic. Apart, well . . . they needed each other to complete the other’s genius.
One might well say the same of Watson and Holmes. Or even of Conan Doyle and his fictional sleuth. Doyle may have hated Holmes, and dreamed on long winter nights of killing off his greatest creation—but, in the end, he needed Holmes. And perhaps that as much as anything drove the onetime doctor to lure the famous detective to a certain death at the hands of his fictional nemesis, the delightfully unrepentant Professor Moriarty. (I like to play a little quiz game in my fiction classes. While delivering a lecture on the nature of a good antagonist, after telling them roughly how many Holmes stories Doyle penned, I ask the class how many of the stories Moriarty appears in. The answer is inevitably in the double digits—a testament to the impact of the deliciously evil Professor, who, as I’m sure most of you know, appears in only one story, The Final Problem, and is mentioned in passing in three.)
In fact, though Doyle could not be said to have invented the arch villain (perhaps that honor belongs to Shakespeare; Iago springs to mind, though there are surely other candidates)—Doyle added a level of modernity to him when he gave Moriarty superhuman genius, in addition to the usual qualities of cunning, ambition, and obsessive drive shared by other great fictional villains (Iago, Lady MacBeth, Javert, the Monte Cristo villain).
Happily, readers of our times are no more ready for Holmes to solve his last case than they were in Edwardian times. And so the Master lives on—in novels and stories penned by a wide range of Doyle devotees (for how can you hope to recreate his world if you don’t share a deep love for Holmes and Watson?)
Most people are familiar with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce films of the 1930s and ’40s, and some readers may have heard the radio recordings from that era with Rathbone and Bruce reprising their film roles.
And there have, of course, been many other film, television, and radio versions of the great detective—some of them treatments of Doyle’s own stories, and some of them original stories from new writers (The Seven Percent Solution, Young Sherlock Holmes, The Secret Life of Sherlock Holmes, to mention just a few). And probably the most lavish treatment of the original Doyle stories is the gorgeously produced BBC/-Granada Television series of the 1980s, starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke—maybe the best Holmes and Watson ever to appear—on film. Brett’s fidgety, restless Holmes and Hardwicke’s quietly intelligent, noble Watson strike me as both the most personal and most faithful interpretations of Doyle’s characters.
The BBC/Grenada series is stunning to look at—one feels that every detail of life in nineteenth century London was researched and lovingly recreated by the production team. But there is something about Conan Doyle’s tales of adventure and intrigue that make them especially wonderful as radio drama. London of that time was a noisy city of richly textured sounds—the squawk of street vendors blending with the rattle of wooden cart wheels and the steady clip-clop of horses’ hooves on cobblestones, with Big Ben faithfully chiming out the hours in the background.
And now, thanks to Jim French Productions, Holmes lovers can savor the further adventures of Sherlock Holmes and his ever-trusty Watson in a handsomely produced series of radio plays, Sherlock Holmes Radio Mysteries. The recordings recreate the same nineteenth century London that Holmes fans have come to love, all in brand-new stories by Jim French himself that capture the essence of Doyle’s world beautifully.
I first came across the recordings when the music director of my own show, Sherlock Holmes: The Musical, gave them to me as a birthday present. I began listening to them in my cabin at Byrdcliffe Arts Colony in Woodstock, New York, and I was soon hooked. (Our rustic cabins have no television reception, and so radio or tapes are the only source of electronic stimulation.)
For two glorious weeks, I never once missed my cable TV or my usual fix of Forensic Files. I had all the crime solving I needed—and in the much more intimate, personal medium of radio! Here were Holmes and Watson, together again, in the old familiar settings, sweeping out into the swirling London fog, their overcoats drawn tightly around them, in search of a Hansom cab, on the heels of the nefarious criminals lurking in London’s seedy underworld.
After gorging myself on the sixteen-episode set my friend had given me, I was delighted to see two more CDs awaiting me in the mail upon my return to New York City: The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, yet another Jim French production.
The first thing you notice about the recordings is how rich and well-done the production values are. The opening theme is Camille Saint-Saens’s Dance Macabre—which, with its sliding, spooky opening violin solo of dissonant tritones, sets the mood perfectly (coincidentally, the same music is also the theme of the BBC’s mystery series Jonathan Creek). The incidental music in the French series, by Michael Lynch, is excellent, and serves to highlight the action and drama of the stories.
I was disappointed to see that the excellent John Gilbert had been replaced by John Patrick Lowrie as Sherlock Holmes in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but I need not have worried. Lowrie is a wonderful Holmes, and—whether by accident or design—he sounds uncannily like Basil Rathbone. Lawrence Albert is a sensible, stalwart Watson; and many of the guest character actors (including Dennis Bateman, Ellen McLain, and Rick May as Inspector Lestrade) are delightful, ranging from drunken night watchmen to prissy upper class clients.
The actors’ English accents are not all uniformly convincing, but it is a minor point, and it would be churlish to point out which performers could use some work in the dialect department. More importantly, the spirit of the original is preserved in the carefully crafted stories and beautifully recreated scenes, often set in aurally interesting locations such as cavernous museums and London alleyways.
The first-person narrative by Dr. Watson, as in the original stories, is effective but never intrusive—most of the action is advanced through scene, action, and dialogue; and most of the stories contain very Doyle-like plot twists. Most of the time the live audiences are not apparent in the recordings, though in one amusing scene in which Holmes gives Mrs. Hudson (the delightful Lee Paasch) an impromptu acting lesson, you can hear giggles from the audience.
The plots are clever and engaging—especially impressive when one considers that each story runs less than thirty minutes. Jim French has been writing radio dramas for over thirty years, which is not surprising, given the quality of the Holmes mysteries. His company is called Imagination Theatre. Visit their website, HTTP://WWW.JIMFRENCHPRODUCTIONS.COM/, and they will tell you that it is “American radio’s premiere drama series, now heard coast to coast on well over a hundred r
adio stations in North America and by satellite on XM Radio.”
Out of Seattle, their weekly broadcasts “feature mystery, suspense, fantasy and adventure, produced by Jim French Productions before live audiences on a state-of-the-art recording stage.”
The Holmes stories that French has written were authorized by the estate of Dame Jean Conan Doyle, and a BBC host called the show, “One of the four best radio dramas in the English language.” To bring them to life, the website tells us, French studied the master’s original stories and delved into Victorian history. A visit to the website also offers glimpses of other intriguing mysteries and dramas available from Imagination Theatre: in addition to the Sherlock Holmes stories, there are the adventures of “a former Chicago cop turned hard-luck private detective named Harry Nile.” French created the character thirty years ago for a one-time-only broadcast, but audience response was enthusiastic, “and so began 26 years of episodes featuring Phil Harper as Harry, later to be joined by Pat French as his admiring and quirky associate, Murphy. Harry Nile has developed a large, devoted following, maybe because he’s had a hard life—kicked off the Chicago police force, hounded by a dirty cop who was on the take, battling his own gambling addiction, even losing his bride of one year in a gun battle.”
Also available on audio tape or CD are other tales of Raffles, which are “based on stories written by E.W. Hornung, the brother-in-law of Holmes’s creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Raffles is “that fabulous rogue of Victorian society A.J. Raffles” (played by actor John Armstrong). Some of the stories available are “The Ides of March,” “A Costume Piece,” and a completely original play by M. J. Elliott “A Gift From the Gods.”
There are other delights to be found as well, such as Act One Audio from Topics Entertainment, a collection from the Movies for Your Mind series of Jim French mysteries, suspense dramas, Sci-Fi, and fantasy radio shows which first aired over KVI in Seattle in a series called Crisis.
