On paper, the BBC’s four-part adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s third Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, looked like a winner. It was a reunion of sorts for various key players in one of the best-loved eras of Doctor Who (1963-1989) – Holmes would be the first television role for Tom Baker since he’d handed back the keys to the TARDIS the previous year after an unequalled seven years in the leading role; Alexander Baron‘s scripts were edited by former Who writer and script editor Terrance Dicks; and the producer was Barry Letts who had long been associated with the show as both writer and producer and who had cast Baker as the fourth Doctor in 1974. But somehow all this talent was brought to bear on one of the most famous and best-loved tales in English literature and the result was underwhelming at best.

The story is surely well known by now and Baron‘s scripts hit all the necessary beats – Holmes and Watson (Terence Rigby) are alerted by Dr Mortimer (Will Knightley) to the story of the legendary hound that has brought misery to the Baskervilles for generations and which seems to have recently been responsible for the death of Sir Charles Baskerville (John Boswall). Accepting a commission to protect the newly arrived from America Sir Henry (Nicholas Woodeson), the detective duo heads off for Dartmoor where they encounter escaped prisoners, family intrigue and a climactic encounter on the treacherous moors with the glowing hound itself.

All the elements are in place then, and Baker is as marvellous as you’d hope as Holmes (though it’s always been difficult to separate his portrayal of Baker Street’s most famous resident with that of The Doctor – he’d even donned deerstalker and Inverness cape for the Victorian London set serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang in 1977) but it’s a performance left stranded in a curiously dry and stodgy production – he deserved something better than this really. It’s an adaptation shorn of all the story’s vitality, wearily plodding from one well-explored plot beat to the next, entirely lacking in excitement, suspense or atmosphere. The location shots are uninspired, and the interiors shot by director Peter Duguid (who had previously directed the The Absent Minded Coterie (1973) episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes (1971-1973)) with all the imagination of a recorded stage play, complete with pedestrian camerawork. Listless is the word that most readily springs to mind and it’s not a word you’d want to associate with a Sherlock Holmes adaptation.

A poorly chosen supporting cast do little to help. Knightley (Keira’s dad) is an uninspired Mortimer, Christopher Ravenscroft and Kay Adshead make little impact as the Stapletons, another Who refugee, Caroline John (who had played Elizabeth Shaw opposite Jon Pertwee in his first series in 1970) is equally unmemorable as Laura Lyons and poor Nicholas Woodeson does his best as Sir Henry but is scuppered by his diminutive stature – no fault of Woodeson‘s of course, but he looks faintly ridiculous alongside the towering Baker who is almost a foot taller. Worst of all though is Terence Rigby (later to play Inspector Layton opposite Ian Richardson’s Holmes in 1983’s The Sign of Four) who is saddled with a version of Watson that’s not quite Nigel Bruce levels of bumbling dim-wittedness but isn’t all that far off and comes across as a bit of a wet blanket – a major liability given that Holmes is off-stage for a good chunk of the story, leaving us with Watson to carry the story forward. The rest of the supporting cast simply turn up, go through their paces and are almost instantly forgotten again.

Carl Davis contributes a very odd score that’s sometimes quite effective though the jaunty cue that accompanies the animated title sequence seems to have wandered in from another production. The set and costume designs, by Michael Edwards and Joyce Hawkins respectively, are about what you’d expect from a BBC Sunday evening serial of the time – they certainly look authentic enough and rarely show how little money would have been at their creators’ disposal.

But overall, these four half hour episodes (first broadcast between 3 and 24 October 1982) are a disappointment. The more mundane British television of the time often felt stagey and incapable of convincing us of a life outside the tiny studio sets (in this instance recorded at the BBC’s Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham) and such is too often the case with this version of the Hound. The BBC had done much better by the story with its two-part adaptation as part of the late 60s Sherlock Holmes series with Peter Cushing in the title role. It’s not the worst take on the novel by a long shot – the 2002 Richard Roxburgh-starring version might well take that “honour” on the small screen, though few adaptations can match the sheer awfulness of Paul Morrissey version from 1978 starring peter Cook and Dudley Moore – but given the wealth of talent on hand, and its fidelity to the novel, it really should have been a lot better.

Crew
Directed by: Peter Duguid; BBC Birmingham in association with RCTV Inc; Produced by: Barry Letts; Adapted by: Alexander Baron; Based on a Book by: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Script Editor: Terrance Dicks; Lighting by: Alec Robson; Film Camera: John Kenway; Film Editor: Nigel Pardoe-Matthews; Music by: Carl Davis; Costume: Joyce Hawkins; Make-up: Susie Bancroft; Designed by: Michael Edwards

Cast
Tom Baker (Sherlock Holmes); Terence Rigby (Doctor Watson); Nicholas Woodeson (Sir Henry Baskerville); Gillian Martell (Mrs Barrymore); Will Knightley (Doctor Mortimer); Morris Perry (Barrymore); Terry Forrestal (Sir Hugo Baskerville); John Boswall (Sir Charles Baskervillle); Joanna Andrews (girl); Christopher Ravenscroft (Stapleton); Kay Adshead (Beryl Stapleton); Mike Kemp (Clayton); Norman Tyrrell (Perkins); Gideon Kolb (waiter); Brian de Salvo (reception clerk); Michael Goldie (Selden); Caroline John (Laura Lyons); William Squire (Frankland); Hubert Rees (Inspector Lestrade)

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