Conan Doyle's genius detective is the most portrayed literary character in history
in Regent’s Park takes me along the upper end of Baker Street and past the Sherlock Holmes Museum .
This proximity of museum and theatre is particularly relevant at the moment, given that the OAT opened its 2026 season this week with a new play by Joel Horwood about the master “consulting detective”. Ninety-nine years after Conan Doyle wrote his last Sherlock story, the public appetite for his adventures remains undimmed. Horwood’s drama is not that good, comprising as it does a bewilderingly labyrinthine storyline about some stolen Mughal treasure and a mysterious Anglo-Indian woman named Mary.
Yet it’s worth sitting through the wearyingly anachronistic – we’re in 1890 here – views on empire and the British abroad for the chance to have another look at the most enduring odd-couple relationship in fiction. Joshua James, magnificent in a cerulean suit, is an arch and imperious Holmes, a man of astonishing split-second deductions and limited social skills, whereas Jyuddah Jaymes is his loyal and amiable sidekick, Dr Watson.
As they hurtle through London and end up, cleverly, at London Zoo in an eerie nighttime Regent’s Park, we are reminded once again that Holmes and Watson are a pairing for the ages. Such has been the popularity and ubiquity of Sherlock since he first appeared in print in 1887 that we might be forgiven for thinking that Conan Doyle’s total Sherlock output is considerably greater than it was, at 56 short stories and four novellas.
The author himself tried to kill off the character in 1893 in “The Final Problem”, but an early example of consumer outrage put paid to this. The stories had been serialised inand Sherlock’s demise led to 20,000 readers cancelling their subscriptions. These are the sort of figures that, adjusted for today, would give Netflix bosses never-ending nightmares.
Guiness World Records has proclaimed Sherlock the most portrayed human literary character in entertainment history, with thousands upon thousands of adaptations across various media and myriad languages. In this country, Jeremy Brett’s suave interpretation for Granada television in the 1980s made a lasting impression as, of course, did the more recent pairing ofreboot.
The maverick genius and his trusty wingman have proven to be an unbeatable, not to mention exceedingly lucrative, combination, whether the story is set in the original Victorian London or transposed to any time period or location – or gender, as the– idiosyncratic problem solver confounding rules and authority – has been even more enduring and elastic. Think, for example, of Hugh Laurie’s all-conquering television doctorrecycled into modern American medicine – and the entertainment industry is bound to offer countless more interpretations of this iconic figure in the future. From Baker Street to the world.
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