Sherlock Holmes Catalogue, The - The Mazarin Stone / The Cardboard Box Details

Bye-Bye-Brett

There are two reasons why it always makes me sad to watch this disc.

First,because it contains the last two episodes of Granada`s classic,redefining and definitive Sherlock Holmes series.

Second, the sight of Jeremy Brett struggling against obvious ill-heath.

Brett has put on quite a bit of weight by this point due to his illness so he no longer looks like he did. His voice too is not what it was. It has lost that actorly command and authority, instead sounding hoarse and weak.

He isn`t even in the first episode, The Mazarin Stone, bar brief top and tail appearances.The task of solving the mystery falls to Mycroft played by the wonderful Charles Gray. Given his performance here, he couold easily have carried the series had they changed the format to give Mycroft the lead role after Sherlock`s retirement to bee-keeping in Sussex.

That Brett must have been very ill indeed is borne out by comparing the screenplay with the actual story. Or stories, for this is a combination of two Conan Doyle tales - The Mazarin Stone of the title and The Three Garridebs. Mycroft appears in neither.

And so it must have been reworked around Brett`s failing health.

In the latter story, The Cardboard Box, Brett fares rather better for screen time and gives what he must have known was his last performance in the role which he not only made his own, but in which anyone else will now seem like an imposter.