Showrunner Matthew Parkhill on his Young Sherlock TV Series directed by Guy Ritchie

Guy Ritchie made his significant foray into the lives of one of the most iconic sleuths in literary history in 2009 with his film Sherlock. Inspired by the novels by Arthur Conan Doyle during the 1860s and 70s, Sherlock Holmes has seen numerous character iterations in literature, film and television. Now, Guy Ritchie has teamed up with acclaimed showrunner Matthew Parkhill (Deep State, The Caller) to bring a brash, adventurous, nineteen-year-old Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) to television in his new series titled Young Sherlock. Parkhill spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about adding a new perspective to the world’s most famous detective before he become the world’s most famous detective.

What were your early discussions with Guy Ritchie about regarding the series?

One of the first conversations was thatg this is not a prequel Guy’s previous Sherlock films. The hero doesn’t grow up to be Robert Downey Jr. We wanted to do something separate. There was a different world, a different universe in Young Sherlock.

Tonally, it’s a close cousin to his earlier movies in that sense of irreverence, energy, and swagger. We wanted to do something that had that same feel to it. But at the same time, Guy Ritchies’s not the same man he was when he made those films. He’s not the same director, so his interests are different.

We talked about a lot of things, but in terms of the relationship to those movies, this Sherlock grows up to be a different Sherlock.

Matthew Parkhill

What did you want explore in Sherlock Holmes’ character?

Sherlock Holmes has got this incredible mind. An incredible sort of brilliance. But what I found interesting, was the oddness of his character. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock is a very strange man. He’s a loner. He’s an outsider. He’s an oddball. He’s detached. His one friendship is with someone who is not on his intellectual level and who sometimes he treats pretty badly.

So, from a psychological point of view, it was less about his brilliance and more about what made him this person. One element of that was the idea of this dysfunctional family. The loss of his sister, what that does to a young child, was something I wanted to explore.

How did the source material shape your adaptation process?

I read Andy’s [Lane] books, which I loved, and I got my daughter who was 14 at the time to read the books, because I thought it would be interesting to have a different perspective. I love the books, but I wanted a different starting point.

The Andy Lane Sherlock is a 14-year-old school boy. And I was very conscious of the great Barry Everson movie, Young Sherlock Holmes. The things I was interested in exploring didn’t quite fit a 14-year-old. I wanted to make Sherlock a bit older. I liked the idea of him getting into trouble with the law. I loved the idea of starting with him in prison. I didn’t always know why.

I didn’t end up using Andy’s books. When I spoke to the team and the producers very early on, I pitched some ideas and they liked them. It was a strange thing for me. Andy was at the premiere, I talked to him over the process, and he knew I wasn’t using his books, but I was still nervous about him seeing it. But he was very happy, and he loved it, which meant a lot to me.

When it comes to Arthur Conan Doyle who wrote the original books in the 1860s and 70s, so it’s an adaptation in that sense.

Because of the weight of taking on a Sherlock Holmes project, I was trying to find a way to give me a sense, a place, and a space to play in, I’m not going to touch anything after A Study In Scarlet, which is his first book. So again, I didn’t specifically adapt any of the stories from the canon.

Steve Thompson, who was in my writers’ room and also wrote on the Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock, was telling me they specifically went into the stories – we’re going to use this bit of this story, that story. We didn’t do that in our writers’ room. We know where our story is going to end. It’s going to end before A Study In  Scarlet.

Therefore, we’ve got to come up with new material, which honors the books, but isn’t lifted directly from them. It’s a balancing act. For example, we use James Moriarty (Dónal Finn).

Our biggest swing is coming up with James as a friend. There’s no evidence in the canon that those two actually met. My theory was he only ever appears in Final Problem.

But who narrates that story? Watson. Sherlock never told Watson they met. Why? Because he didn’t want to hurt Watson’s feelings, because by then, Watson and Moriarty actually become pretty good friends and were intellectual equals, unlike Sherlock and Watson.

That’s how I squared that circle. I was interested in exploring the idea of why Sherlock and Moriarty later became such enemies, why they became such rivals in Young Sherlock.

Moriarty follows Sherlock halfway across Europe to the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. There’s a real intensity in that hatred. How do you explain that? Is it just because Sherlock’s trying to stop him and uncover him? Maybe? Or is it because there’s something deeper going on? Is it because once upon a time, they had this friendship that turned incredibly bad, incredibly sad? So that was the process of exploring that idea that they were once these great friends.

James Moriarty (Dónal Finn) and Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) Photo by Daniel Smith/ Prime Video

Discuss Sherlock’s evolution from investigator to detective.

It’s interesting, because the challenge of this is, unlike most Sherlock stories, he’s a detective. So he takes on a case. That’s what detectives do. But in this version, he’s not a detective.

He can’t just take on a case. So why does he do it? The idea is he has to get dragged into this. He doesn’t start the season saying, “Oh, I’m going to investigate something.” He starts the season in jail. And his brother Mycroft (Max Irons) gets him out of jail, he gets him a job, and he’s got to behave himself.

But he can’t behave himself, because his mind always leads him into trouble. But it’s not to investigate. He only has to start the investigation towards the end of the first episode when he realizes he’s in trouble.

So in order to get himself out of it, he’s got to investigate. I think that’s true for as long as we run. He could never just take a case for the sake of taking a case. Because the moment he does that, he’s a detective. And I think the moment he becomes a detective, our story’s over, because it’s no longer an origin story.

If he hadn’t met Moriarty, he wouldn’t have been in the library that night. If he hadn’t been in the library that night, he wouldn’t be a suspect in the theft of the scrolls.

So it all comes down to that meeting with Moriarty in the mass lecture afterwards. It’s a knock on series of events as a result of meeting Moriarty. You extrapolate that to a bigger thing. I think Moriarty never would have become Moriarty. And I think Sherlock never would have become Sherlock had they not met each other.

It’s the pinballs in the machine. And the action, reaction – they smash together and therefore head off in different directions.

They are drawn to each other because they recognize and respect each other’s intellect. I think they’re both of outsiders in their own way. And I think this is coming back to the Watson story. Watson is not Sherlock’s equal. He is the sidekick. He is Robin to Sherlock’s Batman. Moriarty is very much not the sidekick.

Sherlock needs Moriarty to fire up his synapses, just as much as Moriarty needs Sherlock. They need each other to be brilliant.

Mycroft Holmes (Max Irons) & Cordelia Holmes (Natascha McElhone) Photo by Daniel Smith / Prime Video

Discuss Sherlock’s relationship with his family

His relationship with his father Silas (Joseph Fiennes), mother Cordelia (Natascha McElhone), older brother Mycroft stems from what happens by the river that day – the death of his sister. Everything follows from that. His mother goes to an asylum. As a result of that, his father starts spending more and more time abroad. As a result of that, Mycroft has to take on the role of fathering Sherlock.

Sherlock has got this beautiful, bucolic existence. His sister’s death fractures this already dysfunctional family which we don’t realize is dysfunctional.

Young Sherlock not just going to be a family story. It’s almost a backstory or a side. It’s essential to understand why he becomes who he becomes. My favourite episode in the show is five, which is a very different episode from everything else. It’s a much slower, much more psychological episode.

When I first pitched this episode to Amazon (Prime Video), I described it as the case he needs to solve to become Sherlock. He doesn’t even realize it’s a case. In episode five, he can’t solve the case he needs to solve, because he’s got this emotional blind spot. It’s Moriarty that has to solve that case for Sherlock.

Silas Holmes (Joseph Fiennes) Photo by Daniel Smith/ Prime Video

Which elements of Sherlock Holmes do you see in yourself?

I’m clearly going to say incredible brilliance. Definitely not a sidekick.

A beautiful American writer, who I worked with a long time ago, said to me something which I’ve never forgotten. “I try to write something that makes me laugh or makes me cry. And if it makes me laugh or makes me cry, there’s a chance it might make other people laugh or cry.”

I don’t want to unpack my wounded heart in this, but I found myself the story of the family. It’s what I kept coming back to. I know this show’s fun and it’s an adventure, but I hope it’s more. I hope there’s an emotional layering to it.

I hope there’s an emotional complexity that comes out of this family story. I think writers generally feel they’re misfits and oddballs.

We spend most of our life alone, locked in rooms, talking to ourselves. It’s not a healthy way to live your life.

by Staff Writer

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