By Franz Amussen
The Game Is On this Sunday night (September 6th) as PBS debuts the popular British television show Arthur & George, starring Martin Clunes as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Adapted from Julian Barnes’s acclaimed novel, Clunes (best known on these shores as the grumpy Doc Martin) stars as Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, in a real-life case that inspired the great author to put down his pen and turn detective. Tracing a string of notorious animal mutilations alleged to involve an attorney named George Edalji, Arthur & George airs in three episodes on from September 6th to 20th at 8pm.
Co-starring are Arsher Ali, as George Edalji, a mixed-race solicitor living in the Midlands; Art Malik (Upstairs Downstairs) as his Indian father, an Anglican minister; and Emma Fielding (Cranford) as his Scottish mother. Also appearing are Charles Edwards (Downton Abbey) as Alfred Wood, Sir Arthur’s private secretary; and Hattie Morahan (Sense and Sensibility) as Jean Leckie, the woman that Doyle befriended while his wife was gravely ill.
The three-part drama won plaudits from the press during its recent UK broadcast, with The Sunday Telegraph hailing it as “thoroughly enjoyable … Clunes proves exceptionally winning as the widowed writer and sometime crusader for justice, Arthur Conan Doyle, who finds a new zest for life when he comes across the curious case of George Edalji.”
The real-life Edalji case saw an improbable defendant, mild-mannered lawyer George Edalji, convicted for mutilating a pony and, by implication, a host of other farm animals in a slashing spree known as the Great Wyrley Outrages. The anonymous misdeeds also included poison pen letters and intimidation aimed, oddly enough, at George’s family. To Doyle, the whole affair suggested blatant racism, targeting a family viewed as outsiders by the local people and officials.
Mystery! airs on PBS, Sundays at 8pm
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