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1 hour ago
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Guy Ritchie has made a new TV series about Sherlock Holmes and the long and the short of it is … hmm. But first, some questions. Does the eight-part mystery-drama include scenes in which flippant young men in flat caps shout “Oi” while hurtling through the air in slow motion? It does. Are there bare knuckle biff-ups during which bulbous cockneys cheer on other bulbous cockneys and Irish folk music diddles frantically in the background? There are. Might there also be bits where everything suddenly goes really fast for no reason, effortful banter between bruisers in tweed trousers, blundering rozzers and the sense that while female characters are welcome to contribute to the plot, they are very much excluded from being any sort of fun?
Well, duh. Or rather, strike a light an’ cor blimey, guv’nor, you’ve got this Guy Ritchie geezer bang to rights. For here is Young Sherlock, a very large and very loud new series for Prime Video that was “executive produced and directed by the man who made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, then that one with Brad Pitt, then some other films that weren’t either of those ones apparently” written through it like a stick of bleedin’ rock.
So off we whoosh to Oxford (home to “arguably the greatest university in the world!”), where smirking young pickpocket Sherlock Holmes (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) has been forced by sensible older brother Mycroft (Max Irons) to earn his keep as a porter. “I will be keeping an eye on you,” he warns, as Holmes Jr huffs around in his period drama apron. And he does. But not well enough to stop the enormously eyebrowed recidivist from becoming embroiled in his first case: a sprawling, Tintinesque affair involving deadly weaponry, ancient manuscripts, international espionage and long-buried family secrets that will rock the establishment to its brogues, by jove.
But first, there is some tomfoolery to engage in with irascible new BFF James Moriarty (a magnificently assured turn from Dónal Finn). “Welcome to my overactive imagination!” bellows Holmes, mid-scrap, as outraged poshos scatter like bowling pins and college bigwig Sir Bucephalus Hodge (a marvellously weary Colin Firth) gets his mutton chops in a twist.
But wait. Who is the princess (Zine Tseng) who has arrived at Oxford with a mysterious and eminently pinchable fifth-century scroll? And who is attempting to off The Four Apostles? An enigmatic clutch of boffins previously involved in a clandestine government mission in rural China?
Detectable among the ensuing blizzard of fists and question marks are shadowy double agents, Holmes’ grief-stricken mother (Natascha McElhone) and a quite extraordinary number of statement moustaches. (You may, like me, find yourself fantasising about knitting them into a stepladder with which to escape from lines such as: “My name is Esad Kasgarli. I am from Constantinople.”)
Ritchie has been here before, with 2011’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (the clever and larksome sequel to 2009’s neither-of-those-things Sherlock Holmes), a comic-book romp with an aesthetic that one is contractually obliged to describe as “faintly steampunk”. Young Sherlock – which is based on Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes book series – has a near identical energy. But what felt fresh in 2011 feels less so in 2026.
And then there is poor Fiennes Tiffin as Holmes. His presence is, as the fictional sleuth himself might have said, a three-pipe problem. Was it the eyebrows that swayed producers? Or was Asda doing a Bogof on Fienneses in casting week and they’d run out of Ralphs? (Fiennes Tiffin’s uncle Joseph is on humourless patrician duties as Sherlock’s ageing father.)
This particular Holmes is less “most brilliant crime-solver in Christendom” and more “self-conscious waiter in mid-range restaurant who addresses diners as ‘you guys’ while doing finger-guns at the prawns”. It doesn’t help that Fiennes Tiffin has been teamed with the explosively charismatic Finn, whose presence here reduces everyone within the blast zone to a smoking hillock of moustache.
Still. The Tintinny stuff is a hoot and Firth is a blustery joy. And there’s a breeziness to all the capering that ensures even at its most geezerish, this is one Guy Ritchie joint wot ain’t entirely pony.
