Published in: News

Conan Doyle: Mystery and Adventure – The Society’s Spring Meeting

Author Roger Johnson

Published on: February 14, 2024

The Society’s Spring Meeting will be held on Thursday 14th March 2024 at Queen’s Gate House, 65-67 Queen’s Gate, London, SW7 5JS at 6.00pm for 6.45pm. Please note this is not our usual venue for the March Meeting. Queen’s Gate House is located in South Kensington, next to the Natural History Museum and the nearest underground stations are South Kensington and Gloucester Road.

Members and their guests may opt to attend the meeting only at £15.00 per head, or to dine beforehand at a cost of £45.00 per head.  This includes VAT and service but not drinks, which must be paid for on the day.  For those who choose to dine, the meal will comprise two courses: Herefordshire sirloin beef, short rib & horseradish croquette with squash purée, charred leeks & split beef jus and Kings House Eton mess, summer berries vanilla bean Chantilly cream, meringue, cherry powder & micro lemon balm.  A vegetarian alternative main course may be ordered in advance. Please advise any dietary requirements when booking.

A cash bar will be available from 6pm.  Dinner will be served promptly at 6.45pm and will be followed by the meeting itself from around 8pm.

We are particularly honoured to have as our speaker the writer and historian Mark Jones. Many of you will remember that the Granada Sherlock Holmes series was developed for television by John Hawkesworth.  That was not his first adaptation of Sir Arthur’s stories, however, because in 1967 he adapted thirteen non-Baker Street short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for BBC 2. They were critically acclaimed and award-winning at the time but today only one episode survives. The first episode of the 1967 series was an adaptation of Lot No 249, which received its second BBC adaptation by Mark Gatiss on Christmas Eve.

Mark Jones has written several books on television, film and literature.  In 2021, he co-created The Literary Agents, a scion society of The Baker Street Irregulars, dedicated to studying Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s works.  He co-created and co-hosts, with Paul M. Chapman, the podcast Doings of Doyle and in 2023 he wrote Conan Doyle: Mystery and Adventure, drawing on surviving scripts and production papers to provide an appreciation of this (almost) lost series.

Mark will talk about the series but also he has obtained a copy of the only surviving episode, “The Mystery of Cader Ifan”, which will be screened on the evening.

The Society likes to keep a record of its activities, including photographs of our meetings which are published in the Journal and on the Society’s website/Facebook page.  If you do not want to appear in a Society photograph please avoid being in any posed photographs and advise one of the meeting organisers.

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