Events

 Ship's Logs

All our online meetings  (starting 2021) are available on The Passengers YouTube channel.

Minutes of recent Passengers meetings:

Sherlock Holmes Close Up Zoom Act

16th March 2025 via Zoom

The meeting began promptly at 2pm with ten attendees Zooming in from various time zones.

In media news:

•   Watson, starring Morris Chestnut, is now halfway through its thirteen episode season, airing to mixed reviews, but it’s rumoured that the series is likely to be renewed.
•   Sherlock & Daughter from the UK is to be released in the US in mid-April. It stars David Thewlis as Holmes and Blu Hunt as the eponymous daughter. SBS will show the eight episode series in Australia (no date as yet available).
•   Enola Holmes 3 from Netflix is expected to begin filming in April, but there is little other information about it as yet.
•   Young Sherlock has now concluded filming under the directorship of Guy Ritchie. In addition to lead actor Hero Fiennes Tiffin, the series also features his uncle Joseph Fiennes, Colin Firth, and Max Iron. It will be shown on Amazon Prime later this year.
•   Production has begun on Baker Street Four, an animated television show aimed at children based on a French comic book series about members of the Baker Street Irregulars and their cat Watson. It is a French/German co-production not due to be released until 2027.

Canonical Anniversaries:

• In March 1869 ‘The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot’ commenced.
• 4^th March - A Study In Scarlet commenced.
• 10^th March 1883 - Colonel Elias Openshaw received an envelope containing five orange pips and seven weeks later he was dead.  Four and a half years on, his nephew, John Openshaw, received a similar letter and came to Holmes for help and so began ‘The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips’.
• 20^th March 1888 - ‘A Scandal In Bohemia’ commenced.
• March 1892 – ‘The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge’ commenced
• 30^th March 1804 – Ronald Adair was killed and the following day Holmes, disguised as an old bookseller, visits and startles Watson, thus commencing ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’.

In the Show & Tell section of the meeting, Leigh Blackmore showed his latest book purchases including The Secret Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, an anthology by Gary Lovisi, with cover art by a friend of Leigh’s. Leigh also had some Solar Pons pastiches.

Rosane McNamara has been on a trip to India with the Sherlock Holmes Society of London – look out for a write up of her adventures in the next Passengers’ Log.

The main part of the meeting commenced with a warm welcome to presenter Micah Cover from California. Micah is a professional magician and performer, playwright, and author who has performed for Hollywood celebrities and on a number of television shows, including Penn and Teller: Fool Us (available on YouTube). Micah believes he’s the only magician in the world to perform a Sherlock Holmes themed magic show. Micah performed a number of tricks for the assembled Passengers over Zoom, involving the attendees in various acts of mentalism and card tricks with a Sherlockian theme, even thwarting concerted efforts to mess with his act. More information on Micah and his tricks can be found on his website.

The assembled Zoom attendees departed at 2:55pm. A recording of the meeting can be found on YouTube. Thanks as always to Doug Elliott for editing the video.

Phosphorus and the Making Of a Hellhound

1st December 2024 via Zoom

Nine Passengers attended the final meeting for 2024, Zooming in from Australia, New Zealand and the USA. A particular welcome was extended to the committed people joining from unfriendly time zones, including presenter Matthew Hall.

Originally from Sydney, Matt has lived and worked in the US for many years, and is very active in Sherlockian circles there. He is an avid collector and contributes regularly to The Passengers’ Log.

The Navigator reminded Passengers that there will not be an end of year issue of the Log this year, due to various extenuating circumstances affecting the editorial team. Instead, there will be a double issue early in 2025. This hopefully gives more time for people to put fingers to keyboard across the holiday period and contribute an article.

The Captain had various items of news for the attendees.

Media News

• ·         The Watson TV series, starring American actor Morris Chestnut, now has a release date of 26^th January 2025 on the CBS network in the US.  Thereafter, the network will show one episode per week starting on 16^th February, with a total run of thirteen episodes.
  The series is said to be set six months (or one year, depending upon which source you read) after the apparent death of Sherlock Holmes at the hands of Moriarty, with title character Watson as the head of the Holmes Clinic in modern day Pittsburgh. There are rumours that Moriarty will make an appearance, and other canonical names of characters appearing in the show are Mary Morstan and Shinwell Johnson.
• ·         UK television series Sherlock & Daughter has yet to be given a release date, but the premise of the show is that a young American woman, Amelia, whose mother was recently murdered, comes to London to seek help from Holmes.  As they work together to solve the mystery, Amelia begins to suspect that Holmes is her father.  UK actor David Thewlis plays Holmes, Blu Hunt is Amelia, and Professor Moriarty is played by Dougray Scott.  Dr Watson, played by Sean Duggan, is only listed as a ‘supporting character’.  The series will consist of eight hour long episodes.  It is due to be shown in Australia on SBS.
• ·         It looks increasingly likely that production of the third, as yet unnamed, Enola Holmes telemovie will get underway in early 2025.  There are rumours that Holmes and Watson end up sharing rooms together; and that Moriarty escapes from prison to continue her nefarious activities.
• ·         Young Sherlock is an upcoming eight episode TV series which commenced filming in the UK in July.  Starring 26 year old Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Holmes, the cast also includes his uncle Joseph Fiennes, who plays his father, and Colin Firth who plays an aristocrat.  It is set to be shown on Amazon Prime Video, with no release date yet.  Donal Finn plays Moriarty, and Max Irons plays Mycroft Holmes.  The series is directed by Guy Ritchie, who directed the two Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law films.

Anniversaries From Around the Date of  the Meeting

• 13^th November 1920 – Arthur Conan Doyle arrived in Sydney on his Spiritualism tour.
• 21^st November 1887 – Beeton’s Christmas Annual for that year was published, introducing Sherlock Holmes to the world in A Study in Scarlet.
• 3^rd week November 1895 – ‘The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans’ commenced.

• Late November 1894 – ‘The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez’ commenced.
• End of November (unspecified year) – Holmes and Watson sat in front of a blazing fire in their sitting room at Baker Street and reflected upon the end of the Baskerville case.
• 3^rd December 1878 – Mary Morstan’s father returned to London from the Andaman Islands on twelve months’ leave, went out that evening and was never seen again.

In the ‘Show and Tell’ section of the meeting, Paul Jenkins described the five weeks he spent in London, including a visit to the Baker Street museum where he purchased a Sherlockian themed bowtie which he was sporting at the meeting. He also met with Steve Emecz from MX Publishing about a potential book involving a true crime in Sydney in the 1890s, which Paul will be continuing to work on. Matt Hall showed the book Holmes Away From Home which was from a State Library of Victoria exhibition in 1987-8. Matt is on a mission to collect Australian Sherlockian ephemera, and also has a rarer version of the same book (from a limited run of fifty) including an etching. Leigh Blackmore had picked up some Conan Doyle biographies The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes written by John Dicksoon Carr in the 1940s, and Conan Doyle by Pierre Nordon (1966). He also had the anthology The Mammoth Book of Sherlock Holmes Abroad (2005).

Matt Hall then began his presentation: ‘Phosphorus in The Hound of the Baskervilles’. In his professional life Matt is a scientist, with Sherlock Holmes and genealogy as side interests. He originally presented this talk at the ‘Sherlock Holmes at Fifty’ conference and as a published article in The Baker Street Journal.

In his examination of whether phosphorus could have been used to make the Hound glow, Matt began by discussing how existing literature on the topic focussed on how phosphorus was problematic due to its toxicity. Matt then explained the various types and properties of phosphorus and how its glow was discovered. He went on to describe why rubbing phosphorus on a living being to create a glow was not actually poisonous and gave the historic background of ‘ghost hoaxing’ in the Victorian era where people did exactly that – including documented cases in Australia, and made the case that Conan Doyle would very likely have been aware of this. Matt finished be reiterating that phosphorus was only toxic if ingested, not if spread thinly on skin or, in the case of the Hound, fur. The attending Passengers followed up with various questions and comment including adding use of phosphorus by magicians and various related chemical interactions.

The meeting ended with a big thank you to Matt for his very interesting and informative presentation.

                                                                    Sherlock Holmes: Memories of Murder

22nd September 2024 via Zoom

Ten Passengers gathered virtually for the September meeting. The Captain extended a particular welcome to those joining at unfriendly hours due to their time zones.

The Captain drew attention to the 2024 Baker Street Irregulars Trust lecture given early on the morning of the meeting (Sydney time) by Passenger Mattias Bostrom from Sweden. Mattias had looked at thousands of newspaper mentions of the Baker Street Irregulars to shed light on the impact of the BSI over its ninety year existence. One item he highlighted was from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph of 16^th November 1946 in which Jon Holiday sought out other enthusiasts to form what he called “a Holmes study circle”.  This led to the founding of The Red-Headed League, Australia’s first Sherlockian society, which Passengers may remember only lasted for one meeting.

Media News

·         The Watson TV series, starring American actor Morris Chestnut, continues its production with filming taking place in Vancouver, Canada and Pittsburgh, USA, where the show is set.  It’s currently planned to screen on the CBS network in the US in January 2025.

·         Sherlock & Daughter, with UK actor David Thewlis in the lead role, and Blu Hunt as the American daughter is an  eight episode TV series planned to screen sometime in 2025. It was filmed in Dublin and in the Irish countryside. Since our last meeting Dr Watson has been added to the cast and will be played by American actor Sean Duggan.  It is due to screen in Australia on SBS.

·         The status of the third Enola Holmes movie has been updated with news that filming is planned to get underway in early 2025.

·         Young Sherlock is an  eight episode TV series which commenced filming in the UK in July. Starring 26-year old Hero Fiennes Tiffin as Holmes, the cast also includes his uncle Joseph Fiennes, who play his father, and Colin Firth who plays an aristocrat. It is set to be shown on Amazon Prime, with no release date yet.

Anniversaries Around the Date of The Meeting

• In the first week of September 1902 Holmes’ investigation into ‘The Adventure of the Illustrious Client’ commenced.

• Early September 1903 was when the members of Professor Presbury’s family noticed him behaving strangely and Holmes & Watson soon became involved in ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’.
• It was late September 1887 that the case Dr Watson called ‘The Five Orange Pips’ took place.
• It was “a September evening” in an unnamed year that Holmes & Watson accompanied Miss Mary Morstan to the Lyceum Theatre to meet her “unknown friend” in The Sign of Four.
• 17 Sept 1920 – Arthur Conan Doyle arrived in Fremantle on the start of his Spiritualism tour of Australia & New Zealand.

The meeting continued with a presentation by Declan Seefield, the producer, director and one  of the cast of a new short film made in Brisbane: Sherlock Holmes: Memories of Murder. Available on YouTube, this twenty minute piece is shot in the film noir style and in the plot “Sherlock Holmes is forced to confront his age and health conditions as he struggles to solve the murder of a fellow detective.” It stars John McCaffrey at Sherlock Holmes, Blake Edgerton as Dr Watson, and David Fitton as Inspector Lestrade. Holmes & Watson are seen in traditional Victorian outfits but the story is set in the present day (Holmes drives a Mazda MX5 in case anyone was wondering…).

Declan took questions after the presentation and also told the group more about the making of the film, delving in particular into the themes of the film (health & legacy) and the inspiration of various feature films (e.g. Knives Out, Shutter Island, The Sixth Sense, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Thor: Love & Thunder). He also revealed the minimal equipment he used in production. It was filmed using cinematic mode on an iPhone, with a gimble and light set to achieve a better quality image. The total cost of production was $1,500 including cost of the existing phone (so more like $200 taking that into account). Declan also went into the writing process in detail including the conflicts he placed on the characters, the plot arc, and how he filled out the story with more details and dialogue. The production took Decland two years and four months to complete  from the idea through to its release on YouTube. The filming itself only took four days, the rest was writing, pre and post production. Six hours of video was whittled down to twenty minutes in the editing process. The film also had a small cinema release in Brisbane and it has been entered into several film festivals.

Anyone wanting to watch this short film can find it on YouTube  here

Author Stephen Herczeg: If I Can Write Holmes Adventures, Anyone Can
14th July 2024 via Zoom

The meeting began promptly at 2:00pm with the Captain welcoming attending Passengers including those in inhospitable time zones, plus guests attending their first meeting, and presenter Stephen Herczeg, who would be speaking about writing Sherlock Holmes stories.

In media news, there are a number of new television programs currently in various stages of preparation:

·   Watson from CBS, being made ready for an early 2025 release. Canonical characters include Watson himself, his ex-wife Mary Morstan and Shinwell Johnson. Set in the modern day, Watson is a doctor in a clinic treating rare and unusual diseases.

·   Sherlock and Daughter is currently being filmed in Ireland and is also set to air in 2025. It will be shown on SBS in Australia.

·   A French animated series, The Baker Street Four is based on comic books featuring characters inspired by the Baker Street Irregulars (and an alley cat called Watson).

·   The 3^rd telemovie in the Enola Holmes series remains in development with Netflix but no official confirmation.

Anniversaries in the current period include:

·   ‘The Adventure of Black Peter’ commenced in the first week of July 1895.

·   Anniversary of the death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on 7^th July.

·   According to W.S. Baring Gould, the ‘Adventure of the Gloria Scott’ occurred 150 years ago, thus also marking the first suggestion to Holmes that he should become a detective.

·   The Battle of Maiward, in which Watson was wounded, occurred on 27^th July 1880.

The Captain announced the results of the 2023 Carole Dukes Montpellier Award for the best article published in The Passengers’ Log in the past year, as voted for by members. The nominees were Robert Veld, Gary Nolan, Matthew Hall, and Michael Duke & Ross Philpot. The winning article was Gary Nolan for his piece ‘The Curious Incident Of the Gun’. 

In addition there was a worthy winner of the occasionally presented Admirable Cobber Award. This is presented to writers of articles with a strong Australian connection ant was awarded to Matthew D Hall for his article ‘The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle Part 1: Victor Eugene Kroemer’.

Congratulations to both contributors.

In Show & Tell, Captain Bill Barnes showed a copy of the anthology of short stories written by the meeting’s presenter: The Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes, and Joe Eckrich showed the short story collection edited by himself and Rob Nunn, Holmes in the Heartland. Both are available on Amazon.

With the regular meeting business completed, Steve Herczeg presented his talk about the writing of Sherlock Holmes stories. Following some background about how he got into writing, including various excursions into short stories and drafting screenplays, Steve spoke about his approach to anthology writing, his association with Bellanger Books and MX Publishing, the editing process and how strict his editors are in regard to Sherlockian canon. He also talked about where he gets inspiration for his stories, how much research he does and tools he uses for both plotting and keeping track of characters. Steve also touched on how he fits writing around a full time job and family commitments, and his process of drafting and re-writing.

 The meeting closed at 3:20pm. Those unable to attend are able to watch the video on You Tube