Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle

This is the story of a power struggle between two men - one fictional, and one real. In one corner is the master of crime – the greatest detective who never lived, Sherlock Holmes. In the other is writer, physician and spiritualist leader Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lucy Worsley explores the extraordinary love-hate relationship between author and creation. In the first episode, Lucy discovers Sherlock's origins in Arthur's early life as a medical student. She unpicks the early stories, revealing the dark underbelly of late Victorian Britain, from drug use to true crime, and traces Doyle's growing disenchantment with his detective, heading to Switzerland to visit the site of one of the most famous deaths in literature.

Arthur Conan Doyle had managed to finally rid himself of Sherlock Holmes. But who was Arthur without Sherlock, and could he become the hero of his own story? Lucy explores Doyle's desire to distance himself from Sherlock. From the delights of the ski slopes to the horrors of the Boer War, she reveals how far Doyle went to make himself the hero of his own story - including taking on the role of detective himself in one of the most important legal cases of the 20th century.

Lucy Worsley explores the extraordinary love-hate relationship between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes. Lucy investigates the return of Sherlock and finds that the darkness of the later stories mirrored the reality of Doyle's life. After the loss of his eldest son, he became an evangelist for spiritualism. His star declined after a public spat with the magician Houdini. Sherlock Holmes, in contrast, found a life beyond his author on stage and screen.