ne of the many hobbies I’ve pursued over the years is collecting what are known as old time radio shows, or simply “OTR”. These are episodes of the many famous (and not-so-famous) shows that had their heyday from the 1930’s to the 1950’s, their death knell being sounded by the arrival of television into homes. Known affectionately as “the theatre of the mind,” these shows ranged from spine chillers to soap operas, from science fiction to quiz shows, from action/adventure to variety shows. And then, of course, were the mystery and detective shows, one of the most celebrated of which was Sherlock Holmes.

The series most firmly embedded in the North American psyche is the one starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, reprising their roles from the popular movie series. The scripts, mainly by Edith Meiser, Dennis Green, Bruce Taylor and Anthony Boucher, tended to be fairly sharp, well-written and somewhat faithful to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. And when the producers ran out of stories taken from the Canon, they began to create their own, including many of the “unpublished tales” alluded to by Watson, such as those of Colonel Warburton’s madness, the notorious canary trainer Wilson, and the Tankerville Club scandal. Further refreshing is the fact that Nigel Bruce’s Watson is not quite the bumbling fool comic relief that he played in the movies (a.k.a, boobus Britannicus filmicus), although it is a little jarring to find him living in California and spinning a yarn to a Petri Wine spokesperson each week.

Each week we’ll be offering another episode from the archives, covering the many (out-of-copyright) series from both the U.S. and the U.K., along with a little bit of background on each one. For now, though, I can’t think of a better way to begin than with Rathbone and Bruce’s version of the first Sherlock Holmes short story, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, originally aired on December 10, 1945. Enjoy!

Listen to:
- New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1945-12-10 - A Scandal in Bohemia (6.7 Mb).

For those interested, an excellent 3-CD collection of several hundred Sherlock Holmes radio shows in MP3 format can be found at OTR Cat for a mere $15. It’s possible to find many of these shows by trolling the net and watching forums and newsgroups, but with the time and bandwidth you’d save, this deal is a hard one to pass up.

t the National Public Radio (in the United States) website can be found a ten minute interview with Leslie Klinger, the editor (and, erm, notemaker) of the must-have Sherlock Holmes edition for this generation: It’s Elementary - An Annotated Sherlock Holmes.

In the year of the famed sleuth’s 150th birthday, Norton has published a definitive edition of the Holmes canon: The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories. NPR’s Liane Hansen talks to Leslie Klinger, editor of the huge two-volume set.

Also on the same page is a 17 minute interview “extra” with Jeremy Brett, the celebrated Grenada/BBC television Sherlock Holmes of the 80’s and 90’s.

Yes, this is from December 2004, but please be patient while I play a little catch-up.