Yes,for heaven's sake,he was.We don't need reminding of it every few minutes.By the halfway point of the first episode even the most tolerant Sherlockian will have had their patience and goodwill tried by the incessant references to the good doctor's literary canon. In what might have been called "The Empty Horse",Holmes - sorry - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - investigates some equine disembowelling in the Midlands for which an Anglo - Indian solicitor has been imprisoned apparently on very little evidence. Depressed and suffering from writer's block that is stopping him from completing "Wisteria Lodge" after his wife's recent death,Doyle takes up the case and sets out to prove the wrongly

convicted man's innocence. Presumably somebody thought it might make

good television,and to be fair the story could be padded out to fill a sixty minute slot for a Sunday night's soporific viewing.But three one
hour episodes? I don't think I'm going to last the course without my

eyelids drooping. Mr M.Clunes looks like Mr Chips and sounds disconcertingly like Mr B. Paterson in a rare venture into dialect. Listening to him is an experience rather like watching Dr Johnson's dog walking on its hind legs. "Arthur and George" is a small delicate bloom that has been forced to flourish and dazzle at the Chelsea Show in a manner completely alien to its very nature. With his fascination for fairies and spiritualism Sir Arthur presents a soft target for desperate TV companies looking for a subject with a pre - sold provenance. If they ever discover he had a predilection for growing cucumbers I can only hope they don't pick Mr A.Titchmarsh to play him.