tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321981775136876837.post1874532612074681201..comments2024-03-28T03:33:46.560-04:00Comments on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere: Remembering Ian Richardson Scott Montyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17710406470860389078noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6321981775136876837.post-45136103980610359162007-02-10T04:33:00.000-05:002007-02-10T04:33:00.000-05:00I first saw Ian Richardson nearly forty years ago ...I first saw Ian Richardson nearly forty years ago on my first visit to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford. The matinee performance was 'Macbeth', with Paul Scofield as the Thane. Richardson had the small role of Malcolm - a pig of a part, because Malcolm has to treat poor Macduff very badly, and then convince the audience that he did it from the best of motives and that he's really a Good Guy. Ian Richardson carried it off superbly - the only actor who's really made the character live for me. The evening's play was 'All's Well that Ends Well', in which Richardson played Bertram - a completely different character, portrayed with equal conviction. And always there was that wonderful voice! I was hooked, and I've often felt that Ian Richardson never quite achieved the recognition that he so richly deserved. A CBE, yes - but why no knighthood? He was a very good Sherlock Holmes, though not, I think, a great one, in a couple of competent TV films that had the misfortune to come up against the best of the Granada series, which was far more than competent. He was, though, superb as Joseph Bell in the entertaining 'Murder Rooms' series. Flawed as the films are (they were written by David Pirie), Ian Richardson's performances couldn't be faulted. When I started writing to actors who had played Holmes or Watson, he was one of the first to respond, with a charming couple of letters and a signed photograph. It was a joy to meet him, however briefly, at the Sherlock Holmes Society of London's annual dinner a few years ago. Well, we'll never see him play Lear or Prospero now, and the loss is ours.<br><br>Roger JohnsonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com