A season of Sherlock Holmes films can be watched at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield next month.
A Study in Sherlock will showcase four films on Thursday nights in March.
The season opens with 1959’s The Hound of The Baskervilles on Thursday, March 3.
Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, Sherlock Holmes – the consulting detective whose powers of observation and deduction border of the fantastical – lays claim to being the most portrayed character on film, with 70 actors having played the illustrious detective across more than 200 films since 1900.
The forthcoming UHArts season provides an ideal opportunity to discover – or revisit – a quartet of the most resonant examples of Holmes’ extensive screen existence.
Faithful and thrilling, while some intriguingly take the character out of the hallowed confines of Conan Doyle’s canon, all eminently show why Sherlock Holmes is one of the single greatest characters in all of fiction.
The Hound of The Baskervilles opens the season on Thursday, March 3 at 7.30pm.
Produced by Hammer Films, this hugely atmospheric adaptation of the most famous Sherlock Holmes story features Peter Cushing in his first performance as The Great Detective.
A week later The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) is being screened in Room B01 in the Film, Music and Media Building on the university’s College Lane Campus.
Billy Wilder’s masterfully irreverent take on Holmes, this time played by Robert Stephens, explores the man behind the public façade, by way of the controversial, “unpublished” cases.
The season’s third flick is Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows from 2011 on Thursday, March 17.
The Sherlock season draws to a close on Thursday, March 24 with last year’s Mr Holmes, starring Sir Ian McKellen as the detective.
The two most recent movies in UH Arts’ forthcoming A Study of Sherlock season were both partly filmed at Hatfield House.
Super sleuth sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was also shot just down the A1(M) at the Hertsmere Borough Council owned Elstree Studios in Borehamwood.
In the second Guy Ritchie helmed blockbuster, Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes faces his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Mad Men’s Jared Harris), while dealing with the prospect of losing sidekick Dr Watson (Jude Law) to wedlock.
Director Ritchie, who was born in Hatfield, also shot scenes of his 2009 action mystery movie Sherlock Holmes at Hatfield House.
The Hertfordshire stately home was also used for last year’s Mr Holmes, which can be seen at the town’s university on Thursday, March 24.
In 1947, the 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes (Sir Ian McKellen), now living in contented seclusion on the Sussex Downs, struggles to remember the details of his last case – the one that forced his retirement.
* Admission to each of the films in the A Study in Sherlock movie season costs £4.
All screenings will start at 7.30pm in Room B01 in the Film, Music and Media Building, on the University of Hertfordshire’s College Lane Campus, Hatfield.
For tickets call 01707 281127 or book online at www.herts.ac.uk/artsandgalleries
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here