On Wednesday BBC1 aired the trailer for the new three-part series of hit drama Sherlock, driving social media speculation about what will happen next to Benedict Cumberbatch’s detective and Martin Freeman’s Watson when all is revealed in January.
As Sherlock Holmes said: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” – and fans are eager to discover the veracity of the rumours circulating about the show.
Co-writer Steven Moffat hinted earlier this year that this series is darker, and its executive producer, Beryl Vertue, tells the Guardian it is, “a bit”.
“It’s stunning, I’m thrilled with it. They’re three cracking episodes and I think audiences will think this is a good way to start the new year. I think it’s very exciting and very moving as well, and beautifully acted.”
Sherlock’s last outing, at the start of this year, took the festive laurels with 11.6m viewers tuning in to see the latest story in Moffat and Mark Gatiss’s reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective.
The 90-minute special, The Abominable Bride, was released in more than 6,000 cinema screens in Asia and was seen by over 5 million people there – something that may be repeated.
“That in itself has been exciting,” says Vertue, whose company, Hartswood Films, makes the drama. “It’s so loved worldwide – it’s huge in China, Russia and Italy. This year we had our own Sherlock convention. Loads of people came from abroad just for a few days and brought bring things for Benedict and Martin they’d made.”
There will probably be another UK convention next year and one is already planned for Los Angeles in May.
Vertue praises the fans, particularly the Baker Street regulars who turned up during filming and were “terribly orderly” with one even making 70 cupcakes for the crew, “so it’s all lovely. I’m very proud of it. it’s so well written and performed.”
Produced by Vertue’s daughter Sue (Vertue says she has done “amazingly well, it’s got a continuity about it I think”) who is married to Moffat, the show is “quite a family affair”, says Vertue.
“You’ve got Steven and Sue and I’m the mother-in-law and Benedict’s parents are in it and Amanda [Abbington] and [her husband] Martin – it’s lovely. My other daughter, Debbie [Hartswood director of operations], is very involved too. It’s a pleasure to go to work really.”
The family atmosphere, the writing and the fans’ response helps explain why the cast are so keen to continue, despite their hectic schedules.
“I don’t know when we’ll do some more but I wouldn’t say that we won’t do some more because I think we probably will actually,” says Vertue. “But because it’s moved into a 90-minute format it can come as an event and people, as indeed they are here, are quite happy to wait.”
“It depends on everybody’s availability. Martin and Benedict have become world stars and Steven and Mark are always doing things. Sherlock has become quite an industry to be honest, there’s lots of merchandise which Sue personally vets so it’s classy. Hartswood works like that, like a family – they all help each other and that’s how I wanted it really.”
Like the Conan Doyle short story that shares her name, The Beryl Coronet, Vertue is highly prized.
She has been given a CBE and won numerous awards including the Women in Film and TV lifetime achievement award which was presented on Friday by Cumberbatch – whose mother worked with Vertue on Coupling and Men Behaving Badly. He described Vertue as Sherlock’s “godmother” and praised her “determination, fortitude and vision” over the years.
She has worked with some of television’s biggest names including Steptoe and Son creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Tony Hancock and producer, music entrepreneur and impresario Robert Stigwood. She did the contract for Daleks creator Terry Nation which gave him some rights to the Doctor Who villains.
It was the money Stigwood gave her after he wound down his organisation that enabled her to set up Hartswood in the late 1980s (named after one of the houses she had lived in) choosing Shepperton Studios for her “one-man” band office so it “looked good on the notepaper”.
For five years, she “couldn’t get going with anything”. “I began to lose confidence. I thought: I can’t do it. Then I happened to see a piece of paper on a desk – God must’ve put it there or somebody – some blurb from a publisher, and there was this book Men Behaving Badly. I thought I’ll send off for that, it’s a funny title, it might be a film … I read the book and then thought it’s a TV series, that’s how it began.”
Her story mirrors the evolution of broadcasting over the last few decades. As well as being one of the pioneers of independent production, she is credited with helping create the format deal with Till Death Us Do Part after realising that while other countries wouldn’t buy the UK version, “the idea’s funny, I’ll sell that”.
She began her career typing scripts for her schoolfriend Simpson. “I learned as I went along really. What I have got – and I’m aware of this – is I’m a rather logical person, and I think: well that sounds good, I’ll do that. So that’s what I used to do.”
Her latest idea is to make a new version of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, written by The Tudors writer Michael Hirst, whom she has long wanted to work with. The rights are held by an Italian publishing company and took months to get but her reputation helped her beat a big American company that bid more.
“If we get a commitment for a series, which I’m working on at the moment, Michael would write them all and that would be wonderful. We’ve not quite got to that point but are moving to that area. We’d need about 16 episodes to do it really properly.”
Times have changed though in that it’s harder to realise her vision sometimes, she says. “People have become more risk-averse, they’re nervous and worrying more than they used to.”
In a world of big “super-indies”, the family-owned Hartswood is unique.
Unsurprisingly, Vertue says, they have had “quite a few” offers to buy Hartswood. “Then you think: no, I don’t really want to do that. We’ve all got a house and we’ve all got a car. We very much value our independence, and the minute people pay a lot of money for you you must do what they say. So you’re making things for accountants if you’re not careful, and that’s not much fun.
“You can’t say never but at the moment we’re very happy as we are.”
Despite beginning her career at a time when things were harder for women, she never saw herself as any different from men: “There was a man on a plane and he said to me, ‘You women and your feminism, I don’t know how you think you’re going to drive a 20-ton truck’. I said, ‘Well I’m not sure that’s my ambition’. I mean, what a ludicrous thing to say.”
She agrees women should be paid the same as men – Hartswood does so. “I think people are freer now about saying ‘I can’t do that I’ve got a parents meeting’ – people didn’t used to say that.
“Technology has changed a lot. We didn’t have emails. They’re lovely, emails, except they’ve stopped us talking to each other, which of course is not such a good thing. And Twitter – you can be president-elect and do that on Twitter now – who would have thought? It sort of lowers the whole tone, doesn’t it, really?”
She underplays her success. “You just have to work hard. Just be nice, be truthful. I think I’ve got the reputation of firm but fair. I find the whole thing still ever so exciting.”
CV
Age 85
Education Mitcham County School for Girls
Career
1960s Associated London Scripts, typing scripts, then agent and producer
1967 Deputy chairman of the Stigwood Organisation
1980 Founded Hartswood Films
1992 Producer, Men Behaving Badly
2000 Executive producer, Coupling
2007 Executive producer, Jekyll
2010 onwards Executive producer, Sherlock
2015 Executive producer, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
2016 Awarded CBE for services to television
