Film
Houdini and Doyle
by Daniel DiQuinzio
For the last few years, one of the hottest trends in broadcast television has been historical drama. Some such as The Astronauts Wives’ Club and Downtown Abbey have aired on major television while other period dramas such as Ripper Street have aired on cable channels. This spring, the television division of 20th century Fox, premiered its own historical drama based on the friendship of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Mister Sherlock Holmes – the world’s first consulting detective and his chronicler Doctor John Hamish Watson, and the American illusionist/escape artist Harry Houdini whose birth name was Erik Welsz. The two figures were good friends, but were also drastically opposed in their beliefs on spiritualists and the psychic mediums that became prominent during the 1920s. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle firmly believed these individuals in fact channeled the ghosts of the departed. This was partly because he lost his first wife several years earlier to tuberculosis. Houdini’s professional training as a magician instead made him believe such mediums were charlatans seeking to defraud those who visited them.
This series takes place in 1901, a year before the end of the Second Boer War between the United Kingdom and the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. Conan Doyle himself served in this conflict as a British medical officer and after his discharge he wrote a history of the war entitled The Great Boer War. His support of the war did not endear him to those who lost family members in the war. As it starts, Arthur Conan Doyle, played by the English actor Stephen Mangan who most recently portrayed the title role in television adaptation of Douglas Adams Dirk Gently novels, has been acting as a single parent while Mary Louise Hawkins, Conan Doyle’s first wife, has spent a prolonged stay in the hospital undergoing treatment for first bout of tuberculosis.
To distract himself, Conan Doyle offers his services to Scotland Yard as a consultant on a case where a Nun claims the ghost of a deceased nun murdered one of the sisters at a covenant. Conan Doyle desires to prove that this event is proof of life after death. Visiting London is the American illusionist Harry Houdini, played by the American actor Michael Weston, who also offers his service to Scotland but to prove the Nun, was not murderer by a ghost. They are assigned to work with Scotland Yard’s first female officer Constantable Adelaide Stratton. Rebecca Liddiard, the local chief inspector Horace Merring, played by Tim McInnerny of Blackadder fame, considers both Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini as nothing more than talented yet annoying amaeuturs.
The three main leads of Houdini and Doyle give excellent performances and have excellent chemistry that allows them to play off each other to dramatic and often humorous effect. This allows Tim McInnery in his role of Chief Inspector Horace Merring to act as the Georgian era equivalent of a comic straight man that is often frustrated by the bizarre antics of the two consultants whose help he is frequently forced to accept. The show’s writers and production designers have taken great lengths to recreate the look of London at the dawn of the last century and ensure that the British characters in the show reflect British culture of that period. An example of this is Chief Inspector Horace Merring’s dislike of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is prompted by the death of his son in a war that Conan Doyle acted as a journalistic supporter of in his book, The Great Boer War.
Despite the strength of the writing and acting in Houdini and Doyle, it suffers from two main historical inaccuracies. The inclusion of Constable Stratton as a woman is one such inaccuracy. Although the young Liddiard does an excellent job as fulfilling the typical law enforcement character in a mystery story her inclusion is a historical inaccuracy for the Metropolitan Police Force, the formal name for Scotland Yard, did not introduce its first female officers and inspectors until 1919. As such, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini could not be paired with a female constable in 1901, as there were no female constables or inspectors on force at that time.
Houdini’s mother also frequently refers to him in both public and private as Harry, which was not his real name, it was his stage name. His real was instead Erik Weisz. After his mother died, Houdini encountered an alleged psychic medium that claimed that his mother was communicating from the afterlife and wished to speak to Harry. This encounter partially inspired his crusade to reveal such mediums as frauds for his mother never referred to him by his stage name. She instead called by his birth name Erik. A scene inspired by this encounter is portrayed in one show’s episodes. It is most puzzling that despite the extensive amount of research conducted into lives of both Sir Arthur Conan and Harry Houdini during pre production that such a basic historical fact would not be discovered during the process.
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