Sherlock and the IT Crowd

by Parsley on Mon, 2010/07/26 - 12:46pm Post to Twitter

PARSLEY’S COMMLOCK

TV/Media Review: Sherlock, BBC1, 26/07/10
Well the BBC did an excellent job of hyping up their 21st century adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes character, with appearances on Loose Ends and the Saturday Review on Radio 4, as well as carefully ‘seeded’ stories in the news. They were preaching to the converted in my case, as it was an idea I really wanted to see, especially when I knew that Mark Gatiss, from the League of Gentlemen et al, was involved in the writing. When the new Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch – a man with a face and name as weird as the character he’s portraying) mentioned Jeremy Brett – the definitive TV Sherlock Holmes – in interviews, it could only bode well.

One of the Saturday reviewers criticised the use of on screen graphics to illustrate story elements. Personally I found it helpful, but I did wonder if the producers of the recent film version of Sherlock Holmes might sue, as they had used a very similar device, and slow motion sequences. In fact within minutes the new TV version had shown up the film version as much less compulsive viewing.

Martin Freeman was excellent as a youthfully cantankerous Doctor Watson, fresh back from being wounded in Afghanistan. His air of exasperated sarcasm went perfectly with the crazy events unfolding around him. They also used the possibility that returning from war might make him as much of a thrill-seeker as the freakier Sherlock, to good effect.

And wasn’t it just great to re-invent 21st century London as an interesting place? It was almost like ‘Adam Adamant Lives!’ had done in the sixties. Because the reality is that intellect is almost redundant in Modern Britain. Police, teachers and health workers are reduced to filling in forms, following procedures and having their statistics aggregated onto a performance chart. If someone began to use their intellect to work out things about people from subtle elements of their appearance, their intelligence would immediately be ‘slapped down’, probably until it could later be recognised by a specially commissioned study. Detailed Public Inquiries have to be held so that even the most basic and obvious facts can be recognised by authorities that routinely ignore them. Even then they might not!

But back to the show. Una Stubbs was excellent as Mrs Hudson, the landlady who gets treated as a housekeeper. I hope that Gatiss and fellow writer Steven Moffat can write some sex into her role, as she confessed in interview that she had always fancied herself as a sex-symbol rather than the ‘innocent’ types she usually played, several times alongside Cliff Richard.

Gatiss couldn’t resist an appearance himself, and whilst that is a reasonable way of getting the performance he wanted I think it was ill advised, because he is just a bit too clearly associated in my mind with comedy, and not enough with the menace that made this compelling. It also reminded me of the likely origins of this approach to script-writing, when I really wanted to think of it as a separate new project.

The dialogue and plot were suberb. There was an outrageously funny moment when the ordinary police got taken down a peg or two by intellect-laden sarcasm from Sherlock on his arrival at a crime scene. It was as if Stewie from Family Guy had grown up into a detective. How anyone could expect 221B Baker Street to be a residential area including regular people is a bit beyond me. Other than that, and it generally not being as jam-packed with people as it is in reality, London was well conveyed.

Benedict Cumberbatch’s face is weird, like something made out of marble, very long and with little colour except for his black hair. Like Jeremy Brett before him, he is extremely compulsive viewing. His rapid word delivery makes him like some kind of warped prefect from a public school.

Coming out of BBC Wales, as Doctor Who does, one couldn’t help wondering if there was a new formula in dramatic writing and yet again we were being ‘played along’. Never mind - it was an enjoyable ride that felt like genius, and this production had a massive advantage over its neighbour Doctor Who: it was not dogged by the incessant intrusiveness of background music.

This show is great because it gives us all the chance to re-imagine our mundane and occasionally depressing world into something magical, with tiny interesting clues sparkling out of everyday occurrences. I will be very happy to watch the rest of this, and any more that the beeb can produce.

TV Review: The IT Crowd (Fridays C4)
The latest series of the IT Crowd, the fourth, is continuing the consistently high standard set by the previous three. Writer Graham Linehan is taking aspects of our lives (Scientology, daytime TV, criminals talking to young offenders about their experiences), and playing them back to us with delicious twists.

Of course for me Richard Ayoade is the star, as geek IT technician Maurice Moss, an iconic role model for every obsessive video game player. In the latest episode ‘Bad Boys’ he took centre stage as he threw away convention and tried to rebel.

Despite Linehan saying he wasn’t really bothered about IT but just wanted an office comedy, he does hit the spot with some of his descriptions and parodies of the computing world, including a laugh-out-loud reference to Windows during a bomb disposal. The fact that adoring fans have continued creating the series on youtube in its absence illustrates his triumph.

Matt Berry now gets a name check in the opening animation. His Caligula-like behaviour drives the plot in several episodes. Neil Hannon/Divine Comedy’s theme tune owes a lot to Gary Numan, whilst the décor of the team’s basement office has been provided by fans of the show after a request from Linehan. Apparently a fifth series has been commissioned, although Linehan intends to share the writing responsibilities.

This show is basically unmissable, but if you do miss it, it is now extremely convenient to watch it over broadband via the 4OD, channel 4 on demand, website.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]