Sherlock Holmes and an English Fry-Up

Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes

I’m keeping today’s introduction short because you’ll want to read the linked article without a lot of fanfare and blather. The article is about Sherlock Holmes and Stephen Fry, brought to us with thanks by our long-time reader, ABA, occasionally known as Cate. She was particularly amused by the article’s reference to HOLMES, acronym of Britain’s criminal database titled Home Office Large Major Enquiry System.

I’m assuming you know Stephen Fry, the English actor, humourist, television presenter, and good friend of Hugh Laurie who played the titular doctor in House. Fry read the British version of the Harry Potter series. (Jim Dale read the North American version.)

Fry hosted the first 13 years of QI, the ‘Quite Interesting’ BBC quiz show that isn’t a quiz show, before handing it over to Sandi Toksvig. QI also features actor/comedian Alan Davies, whom you might recognize from from British mystery series including Jonathan Creek, The Brief, and Agatha Cristie’s Marple.

Returning to Stephen Fry, he wrote a pastiche about Sherlock Holmes along with, as Fry mentions, a catalogue of other writers. Fry also portrayed Mycroft Holmes in A Game of Shadows.

Now that everyone is caught up on who’s who, check out Fry’s description how, as a student, he became the youngest member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London which nearly ruined his life. Or something like it. Read on, click on:

‘Sherlock Holmes altered the course of my whole life’ by Stephen Fry

P.S. Fry’s article appears in The Guardian. Their reporting contains no paywalls, no pop-up adverts, no overlays, no demands for email addresses, no begging interruptions. At the end of most articles, they simply ask for a donation, even a small one. I like that business model.