David Burke obit

David Burke, the First Watson of the Granada Era, Passes at 91

 He was not on the list.

There are actors who play Dr. Watson, and there are actors who understand him. David Burke — who originated the role of John H. Watson opposite Jeremy Brett in Granada Television’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — was one of the rarest of the latter. We have learned that he passed away in recent days, as confirmed by his family.

In the 13 episodes he gave us between 1984 and 1985, he did not so much inhabit the good doctor as quietly rescue him from forty years of cinematic condescension. For a generation of viewers raised on Nigel Bruce’s harrumphing, hand-wringing Watson — lovable, certainly, but irredeemably the butt of the joke and Boobus Britannicus in the flesh — Burke’s arrival was nothing short of a corrective.

Here, at last, was the Watson Conan Doyle had actually written: an Army surgeon who had seen Maiwand, a man of action who carried his service revolver and knew how to use it, a physician of professional competence, and — perhaps most importantly — an intelligent, observant, fully grown human being whom Sherlock Holmes would actually have chosen as his friend.

Producer Michael Cox, in his book A Study in Celluloid, set out the brief plainly. Watson, in his eyes, was not the genius Holmes was, but he was nevertheless “intelligent, brave, efficient, loyal and devoted” — a worthy companion for the great detective, who would certainly not have tolerated a fool at his side. The 77-page production bible known as the Baker Street File, which Brett kept like scripture, demanded a fidelity to the Canon that earlier productions had been too lazy or too commercial to attempt.

Burke had the equipment to meet that standard. Liverpool-born, RADA-trained, and a classical stage actor of long standing, he came to Baker Street with the same Shakespearean grounding Brett did. The chemistry was immediate. Both men shared a near-religious devotion to the Canon (Burke was known to carry his copy of the stories around the set and gently nudge cast and crew toward “the spirit of the thing”). Both shared a wicked, schoolboy sense of humor that became inside-joke folklore for those who worked with them.

What Burke brought, and what is so easy to undervalue, is texture. Watch his Watson during a Holmes deduction. He is not a man waiting to be amazed; he is a man thinking. The amazement, when it comes, is real because the thought process beneath it is real. His Watson interrupts Holmes when Holmes is wrong. His Watson rolls his eyes — affectionately, and just briefly enough to register — when Holmes is being insufferable. His Watson winces when the cocaine bottle appears. He is a doctor, and he never stops being one.

In “The Crooked Man,” Burke gets one of those exchanges that captures the entire dynamic of the partnership. Holmes asks if he remembers the story of King David and Uriah, suggesting Watson look it up in the first or second Book of Samuel:

“You’re quite right, Holmes. Second Book of Samuel, Chapter 11, verses 14-17. You appear to have looked it up yourself since we returned home from Aldershot.”

“How did you know?”

“You used this bill from our meal at Waterloo as a bookmark, did you not?”

“Ex-cellent, Watson.”

“Elementary, my dear Holmes.”

The line itself is fine. Burke’s reading of it — sly, dry, gently triumphant — is what made it a small classic. That is a Watson who has known Holmes long enough to recognize the bluff, and who is just self-amused enough to call him on it.

One of the most-told Burke anecdotes among Sherlockians — confirmed in his own interviews — concerned “The Speckled Band.” Frustrated, as any actor would be, by the inherent thinness of the Watson role on the page, Burke once sat down and counted his lines in the script. The total came to forty-three words. That episode would be more than fifty minutes long.

What Burke and the production team did about that arithmetic problem is the secret history of the early Granada series. The scriptwriters, on Cox’s instructions, set about restoring to Watson the moments Conan Doyle had given him and that decades of adaptation had silently surrendered. And Burke, working scene by scene with Brett, added the rest in the only place it could be added: in the small, silent acting — a look, a hand on a sleeve, a reaction shot.

Watch the climax of “The Speckled Band.” When the speckled band reveals itself, Watson is at Holmes’s side with his pistol cocked, exactly where Conan Doyle puts him:

“It means that it is all over,” Holmes answered. “And perhaps, after all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will enter Dr. Roylott’s room.”

Burke plays the moment not as a frightened bystander to be rescued but as Holmes’s professional partner. The two men move into Roylott’s room together. That is the Watson of the Canon, and Burke was the first Watson on screen to insist on it.

The most famous moment Burke never got to play is the one from “The Three Garridebs” that every Watson actor secretly wants — the moment when Killer Evans’s bullet grazes Watson’s leg, and Holmes’s mask cracks:

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

Granada did not adapt “The Three Garridebs” until the Hardwicke era, and the great revelation scene fell to the second Watson. But it is worth saying clearly: the reason the moment lands on screen at all — the reason any modern viewer can read those lines and believe that Holmes might genuinely fall apart at the prospect of losing his friend — is that the relationship had been built in 1984, by Brett and Burke, from the ground up.

They are the foundation. Hardwicke, with characteristic grace, knew this and said so.

The other moment Burke did not get to play — but for which he prepared all those Conan Doyle scenes that came before — is, of course, the post-Reichenbach reunion. Granada’s “The Final Problem” was Burke’s last episode.

He plays Watson exactly as Conan Doyle wrote him: a man whose “intimate relations” with Holmes have softened with marriage and practice, who is summoned back to the side of a paler, thinner friend in mortal danger, who agrees without hesitation to flee with him to the Continent, and who — in the cruelest deception in the Canon — is lured away from his friend’s side by a forged letter about a dying Englishwoman.

When Burke’s Watson runs back up that path and finds only the Alpine-stock and the silver cigarette case, the screen carries the weight of what Conan Doyle gave us on the page:

“It was the sight of that Alpine-stock which turned me cold and sick... I stood for a minute or two to collect myself, for I was dazed with the horror of the thing.”

That Brett’s Holmes had a Watson worth grieving over — and a friendship worth a viewer’s grief — was Burke’s gift to the entire series that followed

What happened next is, by now, part of Sherlockian folklore. Burke’s wife, the actress Anna Calder-Marshall, had been raising their young son Tom largely on her own while David was in Manchester filming. When the Royal Shakespeare Company offered to engage them both at Stratford, the choice — for Burke, with characteristic clarity about priorities — was not a difficult one. Family came first.

He admitted later, in a letter to Michael Cox quoted in A Study in Celluloid, that he had been frustrated with how little the role of Watson asked of him, however much the writers had tried to expand it. The forty-three words of “The Speckled Band” were not, in the end, a problem that could be entirely solved within the form. Stratford, by contrast, offered him Hector in Troilus and Cressida, V.V. Bessemenov in Gorky’s Philistines, and the chance to work alongside his wife. He took it.

But before he left, Burke did the Granada production — and Brett, and Sherlockians everywhere — one final and inestimable kindness. He recommended his friend Edward Hardwicke as his successor. As Brett later put it, with what one suspects was complete sincerity: “This miracle occurred.”

Hardwicke was so determined to honor what Burke had built that he reportedly worried about the height difference between himself and his predecessor, lest viewers feel the join. The torch passed cleanly, and Granada’s Watson — Burke’s Watson — survived the change.

Beyond Baker Street

“I cultivate a large number of friends” [WIST]

It is a small injustice that David Burke is known to the wider world primarily for thirteen hours of television in 1984-85. He had a career of remarkable range before, during, and after Baker Street.

 

He had, in fact, met Sherlock Holmes once before — in 1965, when he played the villainous Sir George Burnwell in the BBC’s “The Beryl Coronet,” opposite Douglas Wilmer’s Holmes. (One imagines him appreciating the symmetry years later.)

 

In 1983 — just before joining Granada — Burke delivered a study in cold, calculating menace as a young Joseph Stalin in the final two episodes of Reilly, Ace of Spies, opposite Sam Neill. It is a chilling performance: the authority that comes not from volume but from absolute stillness, the sense of a mind perpetually filing and sorting.

 

His stage work, sustained over a half-century, took him through the National Theatre, the Royal Lyceum Company, and the RSC, in repertoire that included Othello, Hector in Troilus and Cressida, Kent in King Lear, the Reverend John Hale in The Crucible, Claudius and the Ghost in Hamlet, John of Gaunt in Richard II opposite Ralph Fiennes, Simonides in Pericles, and a long National Theatre season including Closer, The Invention of Love, and Oklahoma!.

 

 

 

His most celebrated stage role came in 1998, when he originated the part of Niels Bohr in Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen at the National’s Cottesloe Theatre — a part he played for nearly three years, and which led to the genuinely delightful 2000 book he wrote with Frayn, Celia’s Secret: An Investigation (published in the United States as The Copenhagen Papers).

 

The book records a particular Burke quality fans of the Granada series will recognize: an irrepressible streak of mischief. Burke and his friends had fabricated a small parcel of “lost” wartime German documents and sent them to Frayn in the middle of Copenhagen‘s run, just to see what would happen. What followed — Frayn’s slow descent into uncertain belief and back again — became the book.

 

He played William Morris in The Love School (1975); Pvt. Mulvaney in The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling; roles in The Guardians, Armchair Thriller, Random Quest, MI-5, Midsomer Murders, Dalziel and Pascoe, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (alongside his son Tom), and The Woman in Black (2012). He recorded Naxos audiobooks of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece and of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. He returned to Dr. Watson once more, for the 1995 documentary Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective, and in 2007 presented a chapter of Elementary My Dear Viewer: The Shackles of Sherlock Holmes.

 

He was the father of the splendid actor Tom Burke (The Souvenir, Strike, Furiosa), whom David and Anna chose Stratford in order to raise. By any measure, that gamble paid off.

 

 

 

A Gentleman to His Fans

“the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known” [FINA]

What has come through most powerfully in recent years, as Burke has spoken publicly about his Granada days, is the simple decency of the man. The Sherlockians of Evidentia Channel shared, in 2019, the gracious hand-written letter Burke had sent them in response to a fan note — an answer that ran across two pages, in his own hand, addressing their questions and thanking them for their interest. “Times have changed,” they observed at the time, and indeed they have; there are not many people of any kind, let alone working actors, who answer fan letters by hand and at length in the 21st century.

 

 

 

 

The crowning Sherlockian fan engagement of Burke’s later life was undoubtedly his 2022 interview with Gus and Luke Holwerda of The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast, released as “David Burke: A Sherlockian Conversation” (iTunes | YouTube) on September 20 of that year. Joined by Anna Calder-Marshall, he spoke at length about playing Watson, his friendship with Brett, and the decision to leave.

 

Listeners and commenters spoke of how thoughtful, gentle, and self-effacing he was — surprised, even charmed, by the affection of a fan community that had grown across forty years. (He was, by one listener’s account, “nervous” about doing the conversation at all — imagine that, after the career he had had.)

 

The Holwerdas later spent an entire follow-up episode (iTunes | YouTube) reporting on the “magical day” they spent in person with David and Anna in England. For those who have not yet listened, we recommend both episodes warmly — they are exactly the sort of generous, careful Sherlockian record-making that we hope will outlive all of us.

 

He also contributed the foreword to Maureen Whittaker’s Jeremy Brett: Playing a Part (MX Publishing), Whittaker’s performance biography of Brett — a final professional act of love for the man with whom he had shared 221B Baker Street.

 

 

 

David Burke was the Watson we had been waiting for without knowing it. He showed us — for the first time in the modern era of screen Sherlock Holmes — what Conan Doyle’s Doctor actually looked like when he was played whole: intelligent, capable, tender, occasionally exasperated, deeply loyal, deeply moral, deeply present. He laid down the foundation on which Edward Hardwicke would build for nine more years and forty more episodes, and on which every Watson actor since has been measured.

 

Jeremy Brett left us in 1995. Edward Hardwicke crossed the Reichenbach in 2011. Michael Cox followed in 2014. The remembrance we wrote for Hardwicke at the time ended with the hope that he might stand on the terrace with his Holmes. Now that David Burke joins them, the terrace is full — and we have, for the first time in many years, the complete Granada stars assembled, just out of sight, perhaps talking quietly about their wonderful adventures on and off set.

 

Until then, we have Burke’s 13 episodes, still in regular rotation. We have his hand-written letters. We have his audiobooks and his Frayn collaboration. We have his podcast conversation. We have a son of his appearing in prestige dramas on television.

 

And we have, above all, the doctor he gave back to us — a Watson who is no longer the joke, who is once again the friend.

 

We tip our deerstalkers, raise a glass of brandy from the tantalus, and offer our heartfelt thanks.

 

“Excellent!” I cried.

 

“Elementary,” said he.

 

he son of Irish parents (his father was a ship’s steward), RADA-trained English character actor David Burke began acting professionally on stage the year of his graduation (1960), his prolific career eventually encompassing seasons at the Bristol Old Vic, the Royal Lyceum Company, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. His most notable appearances have included the dissolute Anatol Kuragin in War and Peace, Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus, Hector in Troilus and Cressida, Reverend John Hale in The Crucible, John of Gaunt in Richard II and the Nobel prize-winning Danish physicist Niels Bohr in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen (arguably, Burke's most definitive interpretation and a role he originated). It premiered in 1998 at the National Theatre in London to critical acclaim and ran to 300 performances.

 

Burke began acting on screen in 1963, often cast as men of a certain gravitas: upstanding military officers, coppers or mid-level nobility. However, his first foray into the works of Arthur Conan Doyle was as the raffish thief George Burnwell in The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet, an episode of the BBC series Sherlock Holmes (1964). Burke's was a familiar face in many of the classic detective shows of the era, including Riviera Police (1965), Softly Softly (1966), The Baron (1966), Dixon of Dock Green (1955), Z Cars (1962) and Barlow at Large (1971). In fact, it was in the role of Doctor John Watson (co-starring opposite Jeremy Brett), in Granada’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984), for which the actor became ultimately best known. His portrayal of the character as an intelligent, competent and empathetic collaborator (rather than as bumbling comic relief) was closer to Conan Doyle’s original concept of Watson than previous screen incarnations had been. Due to theatrical commitments, Burke left after two seasons, handing the part over to Edward Hardwicke for The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1986).

 

After a three-year hiatus, Burke, now white-haired and bearded, reappeared on screen as a television guest actor, notably in episodes of Poirot (1989), The Bill (1984), The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2001), Dalziel and Pascoe (1996) (also featuring Burke’s wife Anna Calder-Marshall), The Musketeers (2014) (starring his son Tom Burke as Athos) and Midsomer Murders (1997). He retired from acting in 2018.

Actor

Only the Lonely

6.6

Short

George

2018

 

Annette Badland, Neil Dudgeon, and Nick Hendrix in Midsomer Murders (1997)

Midsomer Murders

7.9

TV Series

Fred MessengerJohn FarrowHedge

2005–2016

2 episodes

 

The Young Messiah (2016)

The Young Messiah

5.7

The Blind Rabbi

2016

 

Rafe Spall in Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (2015)

Harry Price: Ghost Hunter

6.7

TV Movie

Leonard Thornton

2015

 

Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Luca Pasqualino, and Howard Charles in The Musketeers (2014)

The Musketeers

7.8

TV Series

Father Duval

2014

1 episode

 

Daniel Radcliffe in The Woman in Black (2012)

The Woman in Black

6.4

PC Collins

2012

 

Love & Distrust (2010)

Love & Distrust

3.5

Video

FreddieSegment 1 - The Summer House (Obsession and Suspicion)

2010

 

The Summer House (2009)

The Summer House

5.0

Short

Freddie

2009

 

Holby City (1999)

Holby City

5.8

TV Series

Bernie Moore

2007

1 episode

 

A Ghost Story for Christmas (2005)

A Ghost Story for Christmas

6.9

TV Series

PattenGunton, Hotel Landlord

2005–2006

2 episodes

 

Samuel West in Random Quest (2006)

Random Quest

6.3

TV Movie

Dr. Harsham

2006

 

Peter Firth and Nicola Walker in MI-5 (2002)

MI-5

8.3

TV Series

Fiona's Father

2005

1 episode

 

The Trial of the King Killers (2005)

The Trial of the King Killers

8.2

Hugh Peters

2005

 

Colin Buchanan and Warren Clarke in Dalziel and Pascoe (1996)

Dalziel and Pascoe

7.5

TV Series

Paul Boddison

2005

2 episodes

 

Peter Capaldi and Ray Quinn in The Afternoon Play (2003)

The Afternoon Play

7.4

TV Series

Judge

2005

1 episode

 

The Rivals (2004)

The Rivals

7.8

Video

Sir Anthony Absolute

2004

 

Secret History (1991)

Secret History

6.7

TV Series

Arthur Markham MP

2004

1 episode

 

Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2001)

The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

7.4

TV Series

DSI Webberley

2004

2 episodes

 

Doctors (2000)

Doctors

4.5

TV Series

Martin Shepley

2003

1 episode

 

Eva Birthistle, Trevor Eve, Wil Johnson, and Sue Johnston in Waking the Dead (2000)

Waking the Dead

7.9

TV Series

Philip Bryant

2002

2 episodes

 

Juliet Aubrey and James Wilby in Bertie and Elizabeth (2002)

Bertie and Elizabeth

7.1

TV Movie

Lord Reith

2002

 

Casualty (1986)

Casualty

6.1

TV Series

Ron FisherJames

1993–2002

2 episodes

 

Animated Tales of the World (2000)

Animated Tales of the World

7.8

TV Series

Goat-Kneed Commander (voice)

2002

1 episode

 

Colin Blumenau, Nula Conwell, Peter Ellis, Trudie Goodwin, Jon Iles, Gary Olsen, Eric Richard, John Salthouse, Tony Scannell, Jeff Stewart, and Mark Wingett in The Bill (1984)

The Bill

6.7

TV Series

Ch.Supt.GoldingChief Supt. Golding

1998

2 episodes

 

Performance (1991)

Performance

6.4

TV Series

Kent

1998

1 episode

 

Testament: The Bible in Animation (1996)

Testament: The Bible in Animation

7.3

TV Series

God (voice)

1996

1 episode

 

Helena Bonham Carter, Toby Stephens, and Imogen Stubbs in Twelfth Night (1996)

Twelfth Night

7.1

Party GuestDancer (uncredited)

1996

 

Biography (1987)

Biography

7.7

TV Series

Dr. Watson

1995

1 episode

 

David Suchet in Poirot (1989)

Poirot

8.6

TV Series

Sir Arthur Stanley

1995

1 episode

 

Space Precinct (1994)

Space Precinct

6.4

TV Series

Vachel

1994

1 episode

 

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992)

Shakespeare: The Animated Tales

7.9

TV Series

Narrator (voice)

1994

1 episode

 

Alan Rickman and Amanda Ooms in Mesmer (1994)

Mesmer

5.8

Doctor

1994

 

Stella Gonet and Louise Lombard in The House of Eliott (1991)

The House of Eliott

8.1

TV Series

Sir John Crowborough

1994

2 episodes

 

Edward Woodward in In Suspicious Circumstances (1991)

In Suspicious Circumstances

7.8

TV Series

James Maybrick (segment: Poisoned Whispers}

1994

1 episode

 

David Troughton in Tales of Sherwood Forest (1989)

Tales of Sherwood Forest

6.2

TV Series

David Walser

1989

2 episodes

 

Dreams, Secrets, Beautiful Lies (1988)

Dreams, Secrets, Beautiful Lies

TV Movie

Edward

1988

 

Screen Two (1984)

Screen Two

6.7

TV Series

Gareth

1988

1 episode

 

Jeremy Brett in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

8.7

TV Series

Dr. John Watson

1984–1985

13 episodes

 

Alan Cumming in Masterpiece Mystery (1980)

Masterpiece Mystery

8.9

TV Series

Dr. Watson

1985

6 episodes

 

Joy to the World: A Celebration of Christmas (1984)

Joy to the World: A Celebration of Christmas

TV Short

Dr. John H. Watson

1984

 

Spyship (1983)

Spyship

7.8

TV Mini Series

Rokoff

1983

5 episodes

 

Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983)

Reilly: Ace of Spies

8.2

TV Mini Series

Stalin

1983

2 episodes

 

Wendy Craig in Nanny (1981)

Nanny

7.4

TV Series

Sam Tavener

1982–1983

5 episodes

 

Ron Cook in Richard III (1983)

Richard III

8.2

TV Movie

Sir William Catesby

1983

 

The Campaign

TV Movie

Tony McLayne

1983

 

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth (1983)

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth

7.6

TV Movie

Duke of GloucesterDick the Butcher

1983

 

Brenda Blethyn in The First Part of Henry the Sixth (1983)

The First Part of Henry the Sixth

7.3

TV Movie

Duke of Gloucester

1983

 

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981)

The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

6.0

The Friar

1981

 

The Winter's Tale (1981)

The Winter's Tale

7.2

TV Movie

Camillo

1981

 

Christopher Benjamin and John Normington in Spy! (1980)

Spy!

TV Series

Sergei

1980

1 episode

 

Play for Today (1970)

Play for Today

7.8

TV Series

Cardinal VolponiMichael ReganMick Connor

1971–1979

3 episodes

 

Don Henderson, Diane Keen, Peter Sallis, and Don Warrington in Crown Court (1972)

Crown Court

7.4

TV Series

Peter GavinRalph GibbsDr. Anthony Boyde

1975–1979

12 episodes

 

BBC2 Play of the Week (1977)

BBC2 Play of the Week

6.9

TV Series

Len

1978

1 episode

 

Armchair Thriller (1978)

Armchair Thriller

7.3

TV Series

Tom Amyas M.P.Tom Amyas, MP

1978

3 episodes

 

Esther Waters (1977)

Esther Waters

7.2

TV Series

Fred Parsons

1977

2 episodes

 

Centre Play (1973)

Centre Play

6.7

TV Series

Tweed

1976

1 episode

 

Jan Francis in Rooms (1974)

Rooms

7.5

TV Series

Alan Alanson

1975

2 episodes

 

Ben Kingsley, Kenneth Colley, and Peter Egan in The Love School (1975)

The Love School

6.6

TV Series

William Morris

1975

3 episodes

 

Stratford Johns in Barlow at Large (1971)

Barlow at Large

6.6

TV Series

Bill Walker

1973

1 episode

 

Bob Hoskins, David Daker, and Martin Shaw in Villains (1972)

Villains

8.0

TV Series

Eric

1972

1 episode

 

Brigit Forsyth and Paul Moriarty in Holly (1972)

Holly

TV Series

Tom Prentiss

1972

6 episodes

 

Cyril Luckham in The Guardians (1971)

The Guardians

7.9

TV Series

Dr. Frank BenedictDr. Benedict

1971

8 episodes

 

Crime of Passion (1970)

Crime of Passion

7.6

TV Series

Andre

1971

1 episode

 

Paul Eddington, Colin Gordon, and Barrie Ingham in Hine (1971)

Hine

7.8

TV Series

George Dyson MP

1971

1 episode

 

Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Paul Scofield, and Anna Calder-Marshall in ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1969)

ITV Saturday Night Theatre

5.9

TV Series

Dan

1971

1 episode

 

The Woodlanders

7.5

TV Series

Giles Winterborne

1970

4 episodes

 

Peter Barkworth, Robert Hardy, Cyd Hayman, and Alfred Lynch in Manhunt (1970)

Manhunt

7.3

TV Series

Beauchamps

1970

1 episode

 

The Wednesday Play (1964)

The Wednesday Play

7.4

TV Series

Len

1969

1 episode

 

Z Cars (1962)

Z Cars

7.1

TV Series

Ernie FranksDannyboyJohnny Oulton

1963–1969

5 episodes

 

Alexandra Bastedo, Stuart Damon, and William Gaunt in The Champions (1968)

The Champions

7.5

TV Series

Roger Carson

1968

1 episode

 

Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1962)

Dr. Finlay's Casebook

7.7

TV Series

Dr. Rawlings

1968

1 episode

 

Jack Warner in Dixon of Dock Green (1955)

Dixon of Dock Green

6.9

TV Series

Wally MortonMedwayBrian Wicks

1965–1968

3 episodes

 

John Thaw in Inheritance (1967)

Inheritance

7.9

TV Series

Henry MorcerHenry Morcar

1967

5 episodes

 

ITV Play of the Week (1955)

ITV Play of the Week

6.7

TV Series

Major DigbyKen Wickes

1963–1967

2 episodes

 

The Fellows (1967)

The Fellows

6.4

TV Series

Det. Sgt. Wayland

1967

1 episode

 

Conflict

TV Series

Dr. John FaustusSam Gerridge

1966–1967

2 episodes

 

William Lucas and Neil McCallum in Vendetta (1966)

Vendetta

7.5

TV Series

Beppo

1966

1 episode

 

Steve Forrest and Sue Lloyd in The Baron (1966)

The Baron

7.1

TV Series

Whetlor

1966

1 episode

 

Peter Adamson, Jean Alexander, Johnny Briggs, Margot Bryant, and Doris Speed in Coronation Street (1960)

Coronation Street

5.6

TV Series

Jack BenjaminSchoolmaster

1963–1966

5 episodes

 

Softly Softly (1966)

Softly Softly

7.0

TV Series

Swaine

1966

1 episode

 

John Thaw in Redcap (1964)

Redcap

7.9

TV Series

Corporal BondPrivate Burroughs

1965–1966

2 episodes

 

John Barrie and William Gaunt in Sergeant Cork (1963)

Sergeant Cork

7.6

TV Series

Arthur StephensJoe Tyler

1963–1966

2 episodes

 

Michael Aldridge and Richard Vernon in The Man in Room 17 (1965)

The Man in Room 17

7.3

TV Series

Lieut. Quatrano

1966

1 episode

 

David Burke and Gerald Harper in A Game of Murder (1966)

A Game of Murder

7.8

TV Series

Det. Insp. Ed Royce

1966

6 episodes

 

A Poor Gentleman

TV Series

Tropatchov

1965

2 episodes

 

Riviera Police (1965)

Riviera Police

7.4

TV Series

Jack Dysart

1965

1 episode

 

Sherlock Holmes (1964)

Sherlock Holmes

7.5

TV Series

Sir George Burnwell

1965

1 episode

 

The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling (1963)

The Indian Tales of Rudyard Kipling

7.0

TV Series

Private Terence Mulvaney

1964

6 episodes

 

Rattle of a Simple Man (1964)

Rattle of a Simple Man

6.7

Jack (uncredited)

1964

 

Detective (1964)

Detective

6.9

TV Series

David Loring

1964

1 episode

 

Saturday Night Out (1964)

Saturday Night Out

6.3

Manager

1964

 

The Villains

TV Series

Tommy

1964

1 episode

 

Friday Night

TV Series

Bill Palethorpe

1963

1 episode

 

The Avengers (1961)

The Avengers

8.3

TV Series

John James Wrightson

1963

1 episode

 

The Sentimental Agent (1963)

The Sentimental Agent

7.0

TV Series

Civic Guard

1963

1 episode

 

Maupassant (1963)

Maupassant

6.3

TV Series

Enice

1963

1 episode

 

No Hiding Place (1959)

No Hiding Place

7.5

TV Series

Archie Martin

1963

1 episode

 

24-Hour Call

TV Series

Ron Smith

1963

1 episode

 

Emily Bruni, David Burke, Mimi Kuzyk, Shelagh McLeod, Zoran Veljkovic, Emanuele Giraldo, Rupert Bryan, Virginia Kilbertus, and Joanna O'Malley in The Return

The Return

Short

John

 

Self

The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast (2019)

The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Podcast

9.6

Podcast Series

Self - Guest

2022

1 episode

 

The Shackles of Sherlock

8.0

TV Movie

Self - Presenter

2007

 

The 11 O'Clock Show (1998)

The 11 O'Clock Show

7.2

TV Series

Self

1999

1 episode

 

Heart of the Matter (1979)

Heart of the Matter

TV Series

Self

1999

1 episode

 

Purple Triangles (1991)

Purple Triangles

8.2

Short

Self - Readings (voice)

1991

 

Archive Footage

La galerie France 5 (2012)

La galerie France 5

7.3

TV Series

Self - Dr. John Watson (archive footage)

2018

1 episode

 

The Great Detectives (1999)

The Great Detectives

6.6

TV Series

Self - Dr. Watson (archive footage)

1999

1 episode

 

The Stamp of Greatness

TV Series

Dr. Watson (archive footage)

1986

1 episode