In Praise Of… Jeremy Brett

Everywhere you look these days, there’s another Sherlock Holmes. Benedict Cumberbatch, Jonny Lee Miller, Rupert Everett, Robert Downey Jnr; Hugh Laurie’s House was merely Holmes by a slightly-different name – even Ian McKellen is jumping aboard later this year as a superannuated Sherlock.

But to me, and many others of my vintage, there can only be one true Holmes – Jeremy Brett. This magnificent actor played the great detective from 1984 to 1994 for Granada television, and in the 41 wonderful episodes he made (those production values – oh to be in the 80s again…), Brett’s performance remains a high water mark of British television acting.

Across those episodes, Jeremy Brett took a character who, by that time, had become almost a comic cliché, and transformed him into a vulnerable, flawed and utterly compelling human being. In doing so, he set the template for Sherlocks to come.

Brett, a very experienced classical stage actor, incorporated an entirely appropriate theatricality into his performance, which, blended with a skilful understanding of screen acting, enabled him to create an eccentric, even frightening Holmes.

With a beautiful, acrobatic voice and a bird-like, almost mechanical physicality, it was a bold characterisation that seemed to capture the otherness of Holmes – constantly moving, throwing himself to the ground to examine a clue; mercurial and unpredictable. Brett seemed to be out of his own time – not a product of the late 20th century, but a living, breathing Victorian.

His casting is a prime example of the perfect actor for a role, someone who so embodies a part as to become, in a way, indistinguishable from it. This caused some problems for Brett – he felt trapped in the part and referred to Holmes as ‘You Know Who’. But for the viewer it was thrilling to watch.

When I think of Holmes, as I often do, it is Brett who comes to mind, in the same way that Tom Baker will always be Dr Who to me. I tip my deerstalker to Peter Cushing and Basil Rathbone, but Jeremy Brett will always take the crown.