Doctor Who Vs. Mr. Holmes

This Anglo-American period

drama was based on Mitch

Cullin's 2005 novel, A Slight

Trick of the Mind.

Ian McKellen portrayed the

titular literary icon, and Milo

Parker was Roger.

Set mainly in 1947 during his

retirement in Sussex, the story

recounts 93-year-old Sherlock

Holmes' struggle to recall his

final case, The Adventure of the

Dove Grey Glove. The mystery

is even dramatised within the

film as Hollywood movie, The

Lady in Grey which the detective watches at the cinema. Mr. Holmes premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in

early 2015, then was released by Miramax later that year. Shown on BBC2

tonight, the See Saw and BBC Films co-production also featured Hattie

Morahan, Laura Linney, Roger Allam, and sixteen Doctor Who cast and

crew connections:

• McKellen provided the voice of the Great Intelligence for The Snowmen, and had a cameo in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
• Parker voiced the Master for Big Finish's Masterful (2021)
• Phil Davis (DI Gilbert here; Jeff Hope in A Study in Pink) was Lucius Petrus Dextrus in The Fires of Pompeii, and voiced Titus for The Cannibalists (2009)
• John [Gibb] Sessions [bon Marshall] (Mycroft Holmes here; Rutherford in Murder Rooms; Bell in Reichenbach Falls; Kenny Price in Sherlock: The Great Game; Conan Doyle in Mr. Selfridge) voiced General Tannis for Death Comes to Time, Mozart for My Own Private Wolfgang (2007), Roland for Castle of Fear (2009), then provided the voice of Gus for Mummy on the Orient Express
• Nicholas [James Sebastian] Rowe (Matinee Holmes here; Sherlock in Young Sherlock Holmes) voiced Rivesh Mantilax for Dreamland, then the Kandyman for Ravenous 1 (2018), Cato Kelgoth for War Room 1 (2022), and Sebastian Hardcastle for Operation Dusk (2023)
• Frances Barber (Matinee Madame) was Madame Kovarian through- out the Series 6 story arc, a role reprised by Big Finish for The Diary of River Song 3 (2018) - she was also Narrator of AudioGo's Snake Bite (2012)
• Shaun Lucas (Passerby here; Man in Elementary) was a Monk in The Bells of Saint John
• Clem So (Customer here; Raver in The Sign of Three; Chinaman in The Abominable Bride) was Mongolian in Asylum of the Daleks, Artisan in The Angels Take Manhattan, Tourist in The Day of the Doctor, Clockwork Droid in Deep Breath, Bank Client in Time Heist, Alien in Face the Raven and The Husbands of River Song, Gent in Thin Ice, Corpse in Oxygen, and Guard in Extremis
• Kit Connor (Boy), Claire Ashton (Customer) and SFX supervisor Neal Champion all worked on An Adventure in Space and Time too
• Matt Jennings (third assistant director) was first AD on Demons of the Punjab and The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
• Christine Walmesley-Cotham (stylist) was make-up designer on The Ribos Operation and The Horns of Nimon
• Leon Harris was also SFX technician on five episodes (from The Snowmen to The Day of the Doctor)
• Lou Elsey (prosthetics tech supervisor) was costume fabricator on Cold War
• Richard Rowntree was also greensman on forty-one stories (from The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe to The Husbands of River Song)