View source for Review:Murder Rooms/R. Dixon Smith

{{Cargo_Reviews_Articles
 |Date=2000-05-01
 |Book=Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes
 |BookAuthor=David Pirie
 |Reviewer=R. Dixon Smith
 |Topics=TV Series
}}
This review of the TV series ''"Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes", by BBC2'' was written by [[R. Dixon Smith]] and published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000).

This review judges [[Murder Rooms: Mysteries of the Real Sherlock Holmes|Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes]] as an atmospheric and intelligent fictional TV drama built from a few real facts about [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] and [[Joseph Bell|Dr Joseph Bell]]. It praises the production and [[Ian Richardson]]'s performance, while warning that some viewers may wrongly confuse its invented plot and character dynamics with historical truth.


== Review ==
[[File:Acd-society-journal-2000-vol10-p98-review-smith.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000, p. 98)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-2000-vol10-p99-review-smith.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000, p. 99)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-2000-vol10-p100-review-smith.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 10, may 2000, p. 100)]]

: [[File:2001-murder-rooms-title0.jpg|200px]]
: '''Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes'''
: BBC2; 4–5 January 2000


'''Reviewed by R. Dixon Smith'''

The young [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] studied medicine at Edinburgh University from 1878 to 1882, earning two degrees. While there, he served as out-patient clerk for one of the university's most illustrious medical professors, [[Joseph Bell|Dr Joseph Bell]]. Well known is the fact that [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] drew on [[Joseph Bell|Bell]]'s powers of observation as a source for the analytical attributes of [[Sherlock Holmes]]. 

Using these slender facts, scriptwriter David Pirie embellished them to create, in a remarkably clever two-part drama, an alternative version of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s relationship with [[Joseph Bell|Dr Bell]]. Although titled Bloodlines during production, its transmission title had been changed to [[The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes|Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes]]. [[Joseph Bell|Bell]] becomes a well-known amateur detective, consulted by the Edinburgh constabulary whenever bizarre or inexplicable events leave them stumped (in the manner of [[Lestrade]] consulting [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] under the same circumstances). [[Joseph Bell|Bell]], then, is [[Sherlock Holmes]] in another time. and another place. His [[Dr. Watson|Watson]] is his young clerk, [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]; and consulted they are for Edinburgh is stained by a gruesome, Ripper-like series of murders. 

Ripper references abound. The stacked pennies placed near each victim's corpse evoke, supposedly, the Annie Chapman murder; and the 'room of blood' is equally suggestive of Mary Kelly's butchery at 13 Miller's Court. The dénouement reveals that an actual Ripper suspect committed these earlier crimes in Edinburgh, and a title card at the end of the drama asserts that the perpetrator had studied medicine in Edinburgh during [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s tenure. In point of fact, he was trained at McGill University, not Edinburgh, and at the time of the Ripper murders was in prison in Illinois. 

There is much to praise in Murder Rooms. The dark, murky sets of Edinburgh's seamier side (another echo of Whitechapel and Spitalfields) are beautifully mounted and wonderfully atmospheric. An inspired casting decision led to [[Ian Richardson]] portraying [[Joseph Bell|Dr Joe Bell]], His face does resemble [[Joseph Bell|Bell]]'s, and he wears a wiry, white wig clearly suggested by surviving photographs of [[Joseph Bell|Bell]]. [[Ian Richardson|Richardson]], commanding as always, had played [[Sherlock Holmes]] twice before, in 1983, in Mapleton Films' [[The Sign of Four]] and [[The Hound of the Baskervilles]]. His was a significant contribution, for he brought an abundant, twinkling playfulness to the role. It is easy to believe, watching him portray [[Joseph Bell|Bell]] as [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]], that he has merely stepped back into the role he left seventeen years ago. Robin Laing, the young actor selected to portray the teenage [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]], is, on the other hand, badly miscast. [[Arthur Conan Doyle]] was a tall, burly man. Surviving photographs of him taken at Stonyhurst and Edinburgh indicate that he was already as solidly built during his student days as he remained throughout his life. Laing is short and too slightly built for the role. 

With but a few reservations then, Murder Rooms is marvellous fiction a fictionalised treatment of wisps of fact. [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] did work for [[Joseph Bell|Bell]]. His father was an alcoholic epileptic. [[Joseph Bell|Bell]] was consulted once-by the Edinburgh police. He was not consulted more than once, for he was not a consulting detective. [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] was his clerk, not his [[Dr. Watson|Watson]]. The young lady medical student is fictional. No Ripper-like murders occurred in Edinburgh. But as long as one does not confuse fiction with fact, why not propel historical characters into fantasy? The problem, of course, is that some viewers will confuse the two. The logical assumption a newcomer to [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] may well make is that, when [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] created [[Sherlock Holmes]] in 1886, he simply pinched the character of [[Joseph Bell|Bell]], renamed him [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]], and launched a forty-year career by relating real-life incidents ([[Joseph Bell|Bell]]'s) in the guise of fiction ([[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]]'s). Such an interpretation would do [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s genius a great disservice. 

Accepted as fiction, Murder Rooms succeeds admirably. Most impressive, perhaps, is author David Pirie's knowledge of things Sherlockian. Entire situations and long stretches of dialogue are lifted from the [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] canon and simply transposed from [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] and [[Dr. Watson|Watson]] to [[Joseph Bell|Bell]] and [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]. A perfect example is [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]]'s celebrated deduction in [[The Sign of Four]]. Simply by examining [[Dr. Watson|Watson]]'s watch, [[Sherlock Holmes|Holmes]] deduces that it had belonged to [[Dr. Watson|Watson]]'s brother, 'a man of untidy habits. ... He was left with good prospects, but he threw away his chances, lived for some time in poverty with occasional short intervals of prosperity, and finally, taking to drink, he died.' This scene and its dialogue have been grafted seamlessly into Murder Rooms, as [[Joseph Bell|Bell]] deduces from an examination of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s watch that it had belonged to the lad's father, now a hopeless alcoholic. Although this threatens at times to become merely an exercise in spotting the canonical reference', for the most part it works. 

R. Dixon Smith








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