Young Sherlock: Matthew Parkhill and Simon Maxwell on Prime Video’s prequel series
A coming-of-age story meets action and mystery in Young Sherlock. Showrunner Matthew Parkhill and executive producer Simon Maxwell discuss the origins of this origin story, working with Guy Ritchie and shining a light on Sherlock’s friendship with his future adversary.
Friends and colleagues for many years, Matthew Parkhill and Simon Maxwell first partnered on 2013 police drama Rogue before teaming up on espionage thriller Deep State.
Running for four seasons on DirecTV in the US and Canada’s The Movie Network and Movie Central, Rogue starred Thandiwe Newton as Grace, an undercover cop whose professional actions have tragic consequences for her personal life. Deep State, which ran for two seasons from 2018-19, introduced Max Easton (Mark Strong), a former MI6 agent brought back into the field as he seeks revenge for his son’s death, only to find himself in the middle of a covert intelligence war in the Middle East.
After two contemporary projects, their latest series together now sees them travel back in time to Victorian England, which serves as the backdrop to Prime Video’s Young Sherlock.
Pitched as an irreverent, action-packed mystery, it charts the origin story of the world’s greatest detective. When a charismatic, youthfully defiant Sherlock Holmes meets none other than James Moriarty, he finds himself dragged into a murder investigation that threatens his liberty.
Sherlock’s first ever case then throws him into the middle of a globe-trotting conspiracy, leading to an explosive showdown that alters the course of his life forever.
The number-one series worldwide on Prime Video following its debut on March 4, the show’s own origin story dates back several years, when Motive Pictures CEO Maxwell was speaking with executive producer Simon Kelton, who had the rights to Andy Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes novels.
There was also some early interest from director Guy Ritchie, who previously partnered with actors Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law for a pair of blockbuster Sherlock Holmes films.
But when Parkhill joined the project, he found that a 14-year-old Sherlock, as he is in the books, wouldn’t quite work on screen, and so decided to age up the character and have him studying at Oxford University. “It’s about the friendship with Moriarty, the dysfunctional family, the idea of him being in prison and being trouble,” Parkhill tells DQ, “so quite early on, the decision was taken that it’s not an adaptation of the books. The books are great, but [we wanted] to have a different starting point.”
The series was developed with an exec team that includes Dhana Riviera Gilbert, Marc Resteghini, Colin Wilson and Ivan Atkinson. “One of the brilliant foundational bits of creativity and inspiration that Matthew brought to it was the relationship between Sherlock and Moriarty, which is very much the beating heart of the show,” says Maxwell, the former head of international drama at Channel 4.
“We get two origin stories for the price of one, and we’re seeing each of those characters formed on the whetstone of the other, with a friendship that we know is going to turn, one day, into absolute enmity. But in the meantime, we just get to enjoy the Butch-and-Sundance fantastic buddy double act.”
It’s a partnership that is very different from the one Sherlock later shares with Dr John Watson in Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock novels and the numerous feature films and TV series based on the character.
“Watson will always be a sidekick to him,” Maxwell notes. “He’s a brilliant character but we wanted, very intentionally, to do something that felt completely different to that. We’ve got these two characters who are essentially yin and yang, they’re peers. They can spar with each other until the cows come home, and they are each other’s equal and opposite. There’s an extra thrill in that. There’s so much potential in that relationship.”
“Watson is Robin,” Parkhill says, comparing the character to Batman’s own sidekick. “He’s not an intellectual equal. With Moriarty, the idea is that they’re both Batman. One will turn to the dark and one will turn to the light, but they are intellectual equals.”
As with all prequels, the execs also had to consider how Young Sherlock might eventually bring its characters into line with the versions in Doyle’s books. Their idea, simply, is that for however long the series runs, it will ultimately end where Conan Doyle begins, with his 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet that first introduced Sherlock and Watson.
“Ultimately, the story is one of this incredible friendship that’s going to turn sour,” Parkhill says of Sherlock and Moriarty. “That gave me a sense of liberty or freedom, because it’s quite a weight on your shoulders, taking on this, because so many amazing writers have done it. For my own sanity, I said to myself, ‘If I don’t touch anything after A Study in Scarlet, then that’s our playground.’ It just allows you to breathe a little bit, creatively.”
Notably, one of the show’s writers is Steve Thompson, who also wrote on the hit BBC series Sherlock, which starred Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. “He was telling me that when they did Sherlock, they mined Conan Doyle for stories,” Parkhill continues. “In our writers room, we consciously didn’t do that. We were like, ‘Well, we’ve got to come up with our own stories,’ but we want to segue into – or set up – certain things that happen later.”
Maxwell describes the protagonist in Young Sherlock as a “man in formation,” with viewers watching a character who is not yet fully formed. That marks the series out as a coming-of-age drama as well as an action-packed mystery show.
“For anyone expecting the fully fledged Sherlock, he’s not that, but there’s so much joy to be found in seeing someone who isn’t perfect,” he says. “Ultimately, his deductive powers are almost at the level of superpowers when he’s ‘Sherlock,’ but they can’t be at this point. You’re seeing the imperfections and you’re seeing each of those imperfections strengthening the character towards becoming the Sherlock we know and love in the future. But there’s definitely a joy in seeing him come into his own.”
When the series opens, Sherlock is behind bars, before being rescued by his brother Mycroft Holmes (Max Irons), so it’s not surprising to hear Parkhill describe him as “a bit of a mess.” He’s also “unfiltered, raw and a bit chaotic. A bit all over the place.” For anyone with preconceived notions of Sherlock, it’s then shocking to find him befriending Moriarty – a character who has traditionally always been portrayed as Sherlock’s arch nemesis but only appears as a main character in one Conan Doyle novel, 1893’s The Adventure of the Final Problem.
Later in the series, viewers also go home with Sherlock and start to discover how his dysfunctional, problematic family have shaped his character.
Portraying Sherlock on screen is Hero Fiennes Tiffin (Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince), the nephew of fellow actors Ralph Fiennes and Joseph Fiennes – the latter of whom also appears in Young Sherlock as Silas Holmes.
“The first time I met Hero, he did an audition by Zoom from his holiday in Thailand,” Parkhill remembers. “Even in the first read, he’s obviously got this charm. He brought this sense of wonder, almost. I liken it to an Alice in Wonderland type in the way he looks at the world. And he did that straight away. That just lifted it for me. He brought the whole thing alive, because he wasn’t trying to do a version of Benedict Cumberbatch or a version of Downey Jr. Right away, he brought something into it that just made it his own.”
The cast also includes Natascha McElhone as Cordelia Holmes, Zine Tseng as Princess Gulun Shou’an and Colin Firth as Bucephalus Hodge. But it’s Dónal Finn who threatens to steal the show as Moriarty.
“He didn’t start bad, right? Moriarty didn’t start an arch criminal,” Parkhill says. “And he has the same sort of intellect. He has the same charm. He has the same lack of concern for consequences that Sherlock has. But you see in the show that there are flashes of darkness in him.”
“We’re playing a lot with themes around nature and nurture in the show,” Maxwell says. “The question is around how much of Moriarty is just inherent in Moriarty, and how much of it is because he met Sherlock Holmes. There’s a huge amount of playing with those themes, but also the directions they’re each going in and how they form each other.”
With titles like The Case of the Missing Scrolls, The Case of the Burnt Photograph and The Case of the Unarmed Man, each episode in the series offers a closed-ended mystery – but one that also provides a hook into the next episode and the wider puzzle that plays out across all eight parts.
By design, there are also numerous tonal shifts through the story that lean into Sherlock’s psychology. “So by the mid-season point of season one, when we’re really going back to the trauma zone and delving into the trauma at the heart of the Holmes family, the tone of that is very different to where we start, which is much more light,” Parkhill says. “We want to make sure that across the course of each season, you’re going on a real journey. We’re not ever repeating ourselves. We’re constantly going to surprising places, but also to places that are very personal for Sherlock.”
Not yet an all-out investigator, Sherlock’s interest in taking on cases is also driven by emotion. “Each season we have to figure out how he gets dragged in, and it’s usually as a result of him getting into the shit,” Parkhill adds, “and then that has all these knock-on effects. He’s got to dig himself out of it, which keeps it very personal.”
With Ritchie directing the first two episodes, the series begins with a bang and features some trademark action-packed set pieces, not least a prison yard scrap, a chase around Oxford University and the hold-up of a horse and carriage in the first episode. Contributing to the pace and style of the show is a soundtrack featuring the likes of Black Sabbath, the Cure, Placebo and Radiohead, while Kasabian re-recorded their 2011 song Days Are Forgotten for the title sequence.
Young Sherlock marks the first time Parkhill has worked with Ritchie, and he describes the Snatch and The Gentlemen director as “very much in the moment.” “He loves being on set. That’s where he comes up with all these ideas, working with the actors,” he says. “At first it’s quite intimidating, but then very quickly, it’s quite liberating. Then we tried to keep that process going after Guy left us.” Other directors include Anders Engström, Tricia Brock and Dennie Gordon.
“For me personally, it was intense,” the showrunner continues. “It’s a big show and a lot of moving parts, but it was a hell of an experience.” Filming took place in Oxford, Bristol, Somerset and South Wales, as well as some days in Spain. “It was a hell of a circus to go away and join, and I got very sad when the tent went down at the end of it.”
It’s also the biggest show ever produced by Motive (Get Millie Black, The Woman in the Wall) – and certainly also “the most fun and adventurous,” Maxwell says. Mark Patten served as DOP across seven episodes, providing consistency between directors, with Tom Burton as production designer and Jany Temine as costume designer.
“The cast just made it an absolute joy. There’s something about the energy the cast brought across the board, and we also had that extended into our crew,” he says. “We wanted to make sure that, in terms of the way we put together the directing teams and the HODs, we had as much creative consistency as possible, so it felt like we were making an eight-hour movie. Obviously, Matthew’s very much the creative figurehead across the episodes, but there’s a huge amount of world-class craft that’s been brought to bear from every single member of the team.”
Plans for season two are already afoot, with a writers room completed and many crew keen to return should Prime Video confirm its renewal.
Maxwell adds: “It’s a rare thing making a show that’s four quadrant – it’s there for the whole family. It’s Saturday night at the movies. People felt like they were making something that will hopefully stand the test of time and be enjoyed by audiences all over the world.”
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tagged in: Guy Ritchie, Matthew Parkhill, Motive Pictures, Prime Video, Sherlock Holmes, Simon Maxwell, Young Sherlock