Sherlock facts: 22 things you didn't know 

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Benedict Cumberbatch as manga hero, the Russian Holmes, Sherlock\'s staircase at 221b Baker Street ... here are 22 fascinating Sherlock facts

Fans could be forced to pay for BBC dramas like Sherlock  Photo: BBC

In 2006, well-known Holmes enthusiast Mark Gatiss was asked to address the Sherlock Holmes Society\'s annual dinner at the Houses of Parliament. Gatiss, who brought along Steven Moffat as his guest, told the audience about a meeting at the BBC to discuss the possibility of resurrecting Arthur Conan Doyle\'s creation for a Christmas special. He and the Corporation failed to reach an agreement, but as he "raced round the endless circular corridors, frothing at the mouth at what these philistines might be planning", Gatiss bumped into John Simpson, recently returned from Kabul. “As he passed me,” Gatiss explained, “I touched him on the arm and whispered: ‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive’.” This gave him the seed of an idea, which he and Moffat subsequently grew into a modern-day Sherlock: "A young army doctor, wounded in Afghanistan finds himself alone and friendless in London," he teased the group. "Short of cash, he bumps into an old medical acquaintance who tells him he knows of someone looking for a flatmate. This bloke’s alright but a little odd..." Gatiss was effectively pitching his and Moffat’s Sherlock to the toughest crowd imaginable, and they approved.

2. There is no abandoned tube station at Sumatra Road

The location chosen for the bomb-laden tube carriage meant to blow up Parliament in the season three opener The Empty Hearse is actually in West Hampstead, and isn\'t the site of a half-finished London Underground station (although the Bull & Bush abandoned station is nearby). It\'s nowhere near Westminster, but was chosen by Gatiss as a sly reference to The Giant Rat of Sumatra, a Holmes adventure mentioned (but never expanded upon) in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire. Sherlock\'s production team couldn\'t get hold of a real carriage, so mocked up their own District Line replica - despite exterior shots clearly showing a Jubilee Line train. Tube-loving viewers have also been quick to point out other inaccuracies.

The BBC reportedly received over 100 complaints about actress Lara Pulver’s portrayal of Holmes’s female sparring partner as an upmarket dominatrix who used pre-watershed seminudity to bewitch the detective in A Scandal in Belgravia. But some Sherlock purists objected on different grounds. Irene Adler as conceived by Conan Doyle in A Scandal in Bohemia, it was argued in blog after blog, was a formidable woman of honour, who would never allow herself to become a pawn of Moriarty, or to fall for Holmes after showing him her breasts. Steven Moffat disagreed with the feminists. "In the original,” he told The Guardian, “Irene Adler\'s victory over Sherlock Holmes was to move house and run away with her husband. That\'s not a feminist victory."

Speedy’s Cafe, the sandwich emporium frequented by Holmes and Watson in the series, is a real café on Gower Street, near Euston – the BBC’s stand-in for 221b Baker Street. (In the Sherlock pilot it was run by Una Stubbs’s character and named Mrs Hudson’s Snax n\' Sarnies, but that idea was swiftly dropped.) The fans who flock there from all over the world can now enjoy specially created Sherlock-themed snacks, specifically the Sherlock wrap (chicken, bacon, cheddar cheese, lettuce, peppers, red onion, cucumber, chilli sauce – all "wrapped up as tightly as Sherlock’s personality") or the Watson Wrap (roasted vegetables, spinach, tomatoes, spring onion, Brie, sour cream – "safe, warm, and comforting, like his personality"). A Moriarty sub is reportedly in the works.

5. Despite China’s best efforts, Sherlock isn’t gay

As amply demonstrated by the kisses in season three’s first episode, The Empty Hearse, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have always enjoyed flirting with the ambiguity of Sherlock’s sexuality. "Everyone recruited him to their perspective, their interpretation," Benedict Cumberbatch once said when asked about Holmes’s sex life. "I’ve had asexuals come up to me and thank me for representing asexuals." But they’re mistaken, according to Moffat: "There\'s no indication in the original stories that [Holmes] was asexual or gay," he told The Guardian. None of which has stopped millions of Chinese fans from adopting Sherlock as a gay icon, with a vast archive of literature dedicated to his romantic exploits with Watson. There’s a 39-chapter romance novel; a much-viewed video super-cut, above, of Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (or ‘Curly Fu’ and ‘Peanut’, to give them their Chinese nicknames) exchanging longing looks set to slushy music; plus, of course, the inevitable S&M scenarios. All of which may seem like fairly standard fan-fiction fare – until you remember that in China, writing such filth is a crime punishable with a lengthy jail term.

6. Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t play the violin quite as well as Sherlock

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Cardboard Box, it transpires that Sherlock Holmes owns and plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivarius himself. The Sherlock production team, however, uses a different violin for each series (series three’s is a £1,200 Chinese-made Con Fuoco), all on loan from Cardiff Violins. (The shop’s website contains a sweet testimonial from a ‘Mr John H Watson’, thanking the staff for being ‘extremely patient’ with his friend: ‘He would thank you himself; only, well Sherlock doesn’t really do that sort of thing ...’) For season two’s on-screen violin scenes, Cumberbatch was taught how to play and ‘violin act’ by Eos Chater, a member of the classical group Bond. Although the actor played live on set, the playing heard on the soundtrack is by Chater. "Benedict had a week, and made a surprisingly good sound," she wrote of the experience on her blog. "I have no doubt he would be a good violinist if he had the inclination."

A scene in The Blind Banker shows John throwing a pen to Sherlock, who catches it without even looking at it. Cumberbatch made the catch on the first take (using a mirror so he could see it coming), but the cameraman was too slow and missed it. He got it again on the third.

8. China can’t understand why Sherlock takes so long to make

During David Cameron’s official visit to China last December, the Prime Minister allowed Chinese citizens to ask him questions through Sina Weibo, the country’s Twitter-like social network. Among queries about Larry the Downing Street cat, Tom Daley, Visa application forms and Wendi Deng, by far the most popular request was: “Please urge Sherlock crew to be quick! They have had us waiting for two years for every season!” Cameron diplomatically pointed out that “I can’t tell them what to do, as it’s an independent company”, before urging fans to pass the time by reading Conan Doyle’s stories.

In Conan Doyle\'s A Scandal in Bohemia, Sherlock asks Watson how many steps lead up to their quarters at 221b Baker Street. Watson hasn\'t a clue. “I know there are 17 steps, because I have both seen and observed,” Holmes tells him. Because Sherlock fans are similarly observant, there are 17 steps leading to the first floor of the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and another 17 between the hall and front room on the Cardiff set of Sherlock.

K-pop pretty-boys SHINee paid tribute to the series with their 2012 hit Sherlock, and an accompanying video full of slightly suspect Holmes-ian references (violin, shabby Victoriana decor, an ‘iWatson’ laptop), in which they solve a jewel heist seemingly perpetrated by a ghost:

12. ‘221b Baker Street’ actually looks like this

The 370 sq ft one-bedroom flat above Speedy’s Cafe (see number 4), which is in fact about a mile away from Baker Street but doubles as Sherlock’s home for exterior shots, was available for rent in early 2012 for the price of £330 a week.

In A Study In Pink, Anderson flippantly calls Holmes a psychopath. "Do your research, Anderson," comes the reply. “I\'m a high-functioning sociopath.” Not true, according to psychologist Maria Konnikova, who convincingly argues that Sherlock is altogether too loving, empathetic, and aware of his own faults to be considered a sociopath.

Late last year, autism charity the National Autistic Society cited Sherlock’s single-mindedness, inability to understand social norms such as sarcasm, and incredible feats of recall as evidence that he might be autistic. This, despite Watson making a direct reference to his friend’s Asperger’s in The Hounds of Baskerville.

As typography design experts have noted, the lettering used for Sherlock’s on-screen graphics varies according to the occasion. For text messages, AF Generation Z is used; to show Sherlock deduction process, it’s P22 Johnston Underground (above); Irene Adler’s high-end Vertu phone uses the business-like Verdanda. Johnston Underground is also used as the basis for the series’ custom-made title font.

FIRST LOOK: Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing

Freud’s Method, a crime drama produced by Russia’s Star Media, bears a striking resemblance to the BBC series. The lead character is Roan Freydin, a "psychologist and professional poker player" working as a "special consultant" to the police, who are infuriated by his "eccentric methods" but impressed by his ability to solve crimes using "psychological science" and "intuition". Even the opening titles look a little familiar, as Mark Gatiss noted with his tweet: "Ha! The sincerest form of flattery".

In 2010, season one of Sherlock showed Holmes using a blazingly fast BlackBerry 9700; come season two, broadcast by the BBC in early 2012, he’d made the switch to an Apple iPhone 4. By the end of January, BlackBerry co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie had stepped down, admitting that the company had failed to compete with Apple. Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

A week before landing the part of Doctor Who, Matt Smith auditioned to play John Watson; Steven Moffat decided he was "too barmy", and that one Sherlock was enough. Martin Freeman, on the other hand, arrived at his audition having had his wallet stolen on the way and was in such a bad mood it was assumed he wasn’t interested. The following week, he returned in a better frame of mind, read with Benedict Cumberbatch, and the part was his.

The actor’s preparations for looking the part of Sherlock include intense Bikram yoga sessions, swimming, and no smoking or drinking during filming. But there’s one thing he especially hates doing: growing his hair. As he told The Times, “I can’t think of a wittier or even accurate comparison, but I just think it makes me look a bit like… a woman.”

20. Mark Gatiss learnt to swim in Moriarty’s pool

At the end of season one, Moriarty lures Holmes and Watson to a beautiful public pool in order to kill them. The location used (for both the cliffhanger and the beginning of season two, forcing the crew to return a year later and recreate the signage) is Bristol South Swimming Pool; according to the Sherlockology blog, this is also where a young Mark Gatiss learnt to swim.

21. Sherlock and Mrs Hudson knew each other in a previous life

Benedict Cumberbatch has often said that Una Stubbs (above), who plays his screen landlady Mrs Hudson, mothers him on the set of Sherlock. But she has good reason: Stubbs is an acting contemporary of Cumberbatch’s mother Wanda Ventham (who made a surprise appearance in The Empty Hearse as Sherlock\'s Les Mis-loving mother, alongside the actor\'s father Timothy Carlton as Holmes senior), and used to live around the corner from her when Cumberbatch was a child. So a four-year-old Benedict would often find himself forced to endure hours of boredom as Stubbs and his mother gossiped on park benches or street corners. Stubbs nonetheless found him “Very polite... A lovely boy.”

22. The owner of Charles Augustus Magnussen\'s house doesn\'t even live there

The villain’s mansion, called Appledore, is owned in real life by one of the country’s most successful engineers - but millionaire Sir David McMurtry does not live there because his wife thinks it is too flashy. In the original script for episode His Last Vow, Moffat said that Appledore should look like “the Citizen Kane mansion for the iPod generation”.

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