Mycroft Holmes
Mycroft Holmes is a fictional character in
the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
He is the elder brother of the famous detective
Sherlock Holmes.
Profile
Possessing deductive powers exceeding even
those of his younger brother, Mycroft is nevertheless
incapable of performing detective work similar
to that of Sherlock as he is unwilling to
put in the physical effort necessary to bring
cases to their conclusions.
Though Sherlock initially tells Watson that
Mycroft audits books for some government departments,
he later reveals that Mycroft's true role
is more substantial. While Conan Doyle's stories
leave unclear what Mycroft Holmes' exact position
is in the British government, Sherlock Holmes
says that "Occasionally he is the British
government the most indispensable man in the
country." He apparently serves as a sort of
human computer:
Mycroft has appeared or been mentioned in
four stories by Doyle: "The Greek Interpreter",
"The Final Problem", "The Empty House" and
"The Bruce-Partington Plans". While he does
occasionally exert himself in these stories
on behalf of his brother, he on the whole
remains a sedentary problem-solver, providing
solutions based on seemingly no evidence and
trusting Sherlock to handle any of the practical
details. In fact, Mycroft's own lack of practicality
is a severe handicap despite his inductive
talents: in "The Greek Interpreter", his blundering
approach to the case nearly costs the client
his life.
Mycroft resembles Sherlock, but is described
in "The Greek Interpreter" as being "a much
larger and stouter man". In "The Bruce-Partington
Plans", the following description is given:
Mycroft spends most of his time at the Diogenes
Club, which he co-founded. Sherlock's birth
date is given as 1854 in His Last Bow, and
if Mycroft was "seven years his (Sherlock's)
senior", then Mycroft would have been born
in 1847.
In other media
Mycroft Holmes has been portrayed many times
in film, television, and radio adaptations
of the Holmes stories.
Radio
In the 1950s radio series starring John Gielgud
as Sherlock Holmes, Gielgud's own brother,
Val Gielgud, played the part.
In the BBC radio dramatisations with Carleton
Hobbs and Norman Shelley, Mycroft was played
at various times by Malcolm Graeme, Keith
Williams, Felix Felton and – in "The Empty
House" – by Carleton Hobbs himself.
John Hartley played Mycroft in "The Greek
Interpreter" on October 21, 1992, "The Bruce-Partington
Plans" on January 24, 1994 and "The Retired
Colourman" on March 29, 1995 in the BBC Radio
broadcasts starring Clive Merrison as Sherlock
and Michael Williams as Watson.
Film and television
The first film appearance of Mycroft Holmes
was in the 1922 film The Bruce Partington
Plans, where he was played by Lewis Gilbert.
The BBC broadcast two Sherlock Holmes series
in 1965 and 1968 which starred Douglas Wilmer
(1965) and Peter Cushing (1968) as Sherlock
and Nigel Stock as Watson. Mycroft appeared
twice, once in 1965 in The Bruce-Partington
Plans and played by Derek Francis and in 1968
in The Greek Interpreter and played by Ronald
Adam.
In the 1965 film A Study in Terror, Mycroft
is played by Robert Morley.
In the Billy Wilder-directed film The Private
Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), which starred
Robert Stephens as Sherlock, Mycroft was played
by Christopher Lee (who also played Sherlock
Holmes in other productions before and since).
In this film, which purports to show the 'real'
people behind Watson's dramatised accounts,
Mycroft is nearly unrecognisable: whippet-thin
and not notably indolent. He is also depicted
as either the head or at least a senior operative
of the British secret service, for which the
Diogenes Club is a front.
Charles Gray assumed the character in both
the 1976 film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
and four episodes of Granada Television's
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series in
the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gray's first
two television appearances were adaptations
of the two stories in which Mycroft actually
appears (The Greek Interpreter and The Bruce-Partington
Plans). In the two other appearances, the
character was used to replace another for
various reasons:
The Golden Pince-Nez – Mycroft was used
in place of Watson due to Edward Hardwicke
being unavailable.
The Mazarin Stone – Mycroft was used in
place of Sherlock owing to Jeremy Brett's
ill health.
The Golden Pince-Nez – Mycroft was used
in place of Watson due to Edward Hardwicke
being unavailable.
The Mazarin Stone – Mycroft was used in
place of Sherlock owing to Jeremy Brett's
ill health.
The 1975 film The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes'
Smarter Brother, starring Gene Wilder as Holmes'
younger brother "Sigerson Holmes," was inspired
by Mycroft (he is mentioned, but doesn't appear).
Boris Klyuyev played Mycroft Holmes in The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson,
a Soviet TV series. Klyuyev was nine years
younger than Vasily Livanov, who played Sherlock
Holmes.
He is also briefly mentioned in the 1985 film,
Young Sherlock Holmes; when Sherlock is expelled
from boarding school, he tells Watson that
he plans to stay at his brother Mycroft's
for a few days.
Peter Jeffrey played Mycroft in the 1990 film
Hands of a Murderer which starred Edward Woodward
as Sherlock, John Hillerman as Watson and
Anthony Andrews as Professor Moriarty.
Jerome Willis played Mycroft in Sherlock Holmes
and the Leading Lady, a 1992 made-for-TV film
which starred Christopher Lee as Holmes and
Patrick Macnee as Watson.
R. H. Thomson played Mycroft in the 2001 made-for-TV
film The Royal Scandal opposite Matt Frewer's
Sherlock.
Richard E. Grant played him as a semi-crippled
young man – following a bad trip after he
was injected with drugs by Moriarty – in
Sherlock: Case of Evil (2002).
In the 2010 BBC television series Sherlock,
series co-creator Mark Gatiss plays Mycroft.
In this modernized version, Sherlock and Mycroft
exhibit smouldering animosity toward each
other (which Dr. Watson characterizes as "sibling
rivalry" and Mycroft himself refers to as
a "childish feud"). Mycroft, however, bears
Sherlock's insults with aplomb (including
references to his weight, such as queries
about how his diet is going) and beyond the
competitive friction he is deeply concerned
about his brother and tracks him constantly.
When Mycroft tells Watson he holds a minor
position in the British government, Sherlock
interjects: "He is the British government,
when he's not too busy being the British secret
service or the CIA on a freelance basis."
In the episode The Reichenbach Fall Mycroft
is seemingly tricked by Jim Moriarty into
providing information about Sherlock's past
– thus allowing Moriarty to create the deception
that Sherlock is a fraud. In The Empty Hearse,
it is revealed that Mycroft is, in fact, smarter
than Sherlock, and that, until meeting other
children, they both believed Sherlock to be
stupid. It is also revealed that the divulge
of Sherlock's past was part of Mycroft and
Sherlock's plan to take down Moriarty.
Stephen Fry played Mycroft in the Guy Ritchie-directed
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, released
in December 2011.
Mycroft was played by Rhys Ifans in the season
2 premiere of Elementary. For the series,
Mycroft is a highly successful London restaurateur.
There's a large degree of animosity between
the two, as Mycroft reveals that Sherlock
seduced Mycroft's fiancee to prove that she
was only after the family fortune. He's also
the recent recipient of a bone marrow transplant,
as Watson deduces from the scars on Mycroft's
wrists. Mycroft returns in Episode 7 of the
same season, seeking his brother's help with
a case, and in another episode is shown trying
to coerce Sherlock to return to England.
In a two-part episode of BraveStarr, after
falling through a time warp at Reichenbach
Falls, Holmes is introduced to his great-
great-grandniece, the lovely and capable Scotland
Yard agent Mycroft Holmes.
In the Russian TV adaptation from 2013, Igor
Petrenko played Mycroft Holmes, as a twin
brother of Sherlok, who serving The Queen.
Novels and short stories
The character has been used many times in
works that are not adaptations of Holmes stories:
In Jasper Fforde's series of books about Thursday
Next, Mycroft is revealed to be Thursday's
uncle, having escaped into fiction and taken
up residence in the Sherlock Holmes series
to escape the evil Goliath Corporation.
He was the main character in a series of mystery
novels by the author Quinn Fawcett.
He is a recurring character in the Mary Russell
mystery series by Laurie R. King, which feature
a retired Sherlock Holmes as a major character.
Mycroft is portrayed as a senior figure in
the British Secret Service, who occasionally
calls on Russell and Holmes for assistance
in specific cases.
A young Mycroft Holmes is the protagonist
of a mystery-adventure "edited" by Michael
P. Hodel and Sean M. Wright, Enter the Lion:
A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes (published
in hardcover by Hawthorn Books in 1979 in
the U.S. and by JM Dent & Sons Ltd. in 1980
in London (ISBN 0-460-04483-4) and in paperback
by Playboy Press in 1980). The action takes
place in 1875, ten years after the end of
the American Civil War, at the time when Mycroft
Holmes was a minor official in the Foreign
Office. Mycroft is aided by his younger brother
Sherlock, Victor Trevor (who appears in Doyle's
tale "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott"),
and an adventurer known as "Captain Jericho",
a mysterious former slave. They band together
in an effort to prevent an attempt by former
Confederate officers to involve the British
government in a scheme to overthrow the United
States government. The story also provides
an explanation as to the antagonism between
Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty.
Mycroft has a small but extremely important
role in Ray Walsh's novel The Mycroft Memoranda,
published in London by Andre Deutsch, 1984
(ISBN 0-233-97582-9), in which Sherlock Holmes,
at the request of Major Henry Smith, Acting
Commissioner for the City of London, becomes
involved in the hunt for Jack the Ripper.
Mycroft and the Diogenes Club play an important
part in Kim Newman's novel Anno Dracula.
The Doctor Who novel All-Consuming Fire featured
Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, as well as the
apocryphal Sherringford Holmes. The Doctor's
companion Bernice Summerfield was then reunited
with Mycroft in the 2008 audio play The Adventure
of the Diogenes Damsel where he was voiced
by David Warner.
The novel Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight
Murders by Gyles Brandreth suggests that Oscar
Wilde's friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle
led Doyle to create Mycroft as a caricature
of Wilde: mentally brilliant, but indolent
and lazy.
The award-winning short story by Robert J.
Sawyer, "You See But You Do Not Observe",
portrays Mycroft Holmes' namesake involved
in pulling Sherlock and Watson into the year
2096 to solve a scientific mystery.
He appears in the novel The Italian Secretary
(2005) by Caleb Carr.
In the Enola Holmes series, Mycroft is the
official legal guardian of their much younger
sister, Enola, after the mysterious departure
of their mother on her daughter's 14th birthday.
Rather than submit to his wish for her to
be sent to boarding school to conform to contemporary
feminine social mores, Enola instead runs
away to secretly become a private detective
in London while eluding her brothers. Through
the series, Mycroft is steadfastly determined
to capture her while Sherlock gradually grows
to respect her considerable talents and begins
to understand her reasons for her defiance.
However, it is Mycroft who suspects that Enola
may well be determined to become an adult
colleague in his brother's profession, a notion
Sherlock finds difficult to accept.
The Young Sherlock Holmes series by Andrew
Lane features Mycroft Holmes.
In the story Whitechapel Rose, by Lorelei
Shannon, in Jordan K. Weisman's anthology
of short stories set in the Shadowrun Universe
Into the Shadows, Mycroft is revealed to be
legendary among deckers (an in game term for
futuristic hackers).
Comics
Mycroft is depicted as a violent psychopath
in 2000 AD (Canon Fodder, issues #861–867)
by Mark Millar and Chris Weston.
In Issue #6, Volume 1 of Alan Moore's The
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mycroft
Holmes becomes the leader of British intelligence
and uses the code-name "M" – a nod to the
fictional head of MI6 in Ian Fleming's James
Bond novels. It is hinted that he and his
brother are not on the best of terms as a
mention of Sherlock sending his regards are
met by Mycroft with laughter and regarded
as a joke. (Mycroft also appears as the Bond
M in Son of Holmes and Anno Dracula).
Mycroft Holmes is the head of "The Committee"
in the comic book mini-series, Predator: Nemesis,
by Gordon Rennie and Colin MacNeil and published
by Dark Horse Comics. He hires the main character,
Captain Edward Soames, to hunt down "Spring-Heeled
Jack", a Predator hunting in the East End.
Mycroft Holmes appears at least twice in the
Italian comic book Martin Mystère and spin-off
series Storie di Altrove/Stories from Elsewhere.
The comic book series Muppet Sherlock Holmes
features Rowlf the Dog as Mycroft Holmes.
In the popular manga History's Strongest Disciple,
Mycroft is a fictional martial artist who
has worked with Sakaki Shio and Christopher
Eclair.
PC games
Mycroft has a minor role in the 1987 Infocom
game Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels
He plays a central role as the victim of an
assassination attempt in the PC game The Lost
Files of Sherlock Holmes: The case of the
Rose Tattoo.
In the 2009 PC game Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack
the Ripper, the younger Holmes receives assistance
on a case from his brother.
References in popular culture
Mycroft is also sometimes referred to less
directly in popular culture:
A parallel can be observed in the TV series
Monk in the connection between fictional obsessive-compulsive
detective Adrian Monk and his more intelligent,
though more neurotic and agoraphobic brother
Ambrose. Like Mycroft, Ambrose is more intelligent
than his brother but is less willing to investigate
(though this is because he is agoraphobic).
Ambrose, however, does not need to see a crime
scene as Adrian does.
Mycroft was parodied in the Solar Pons series
with a character named Bancroft Stoneham Pons,
who was also seven years older than the leading
protagonist.
Mycroft Holmes was the inspiration for the
name of the silent assistant quiz master of
BBC Radio 4's programme Brain of Britain.
The phrase "Mycroft is shaking his head" became
well known to listeners. Ian Gillies (who
was known as Mycroft) died in 2002 and was
replaced by a character known as "Jorkins".
Mycroft was the inspiration for the name of
a character in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon
Is a Harsh Mistress: "Mycroft" a.k.a. Mike,
a H.O.L.M.E.S. ("High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating
Supervisor") Mark 4, a sentient computer.
At one point in the story, Mike indicates
Sherlock is indeed his brother.
The character of the Marquis of London in
Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories, while
mostly based on Nero Wolfe, also has elements
of Mycroft, in that he is a government official
related to the detective and, while just as
intelligent as his relative, has little interest
in using his intellect to solve crimes.
First series of seaQuest DSV, in the episode
"Photon Bullet", a reformed computer hacker
used the handle "Mycroft" while at an underwater
telecommunications node.
British writer Colin Dexter, author of the
Inspector Morse series of books, wrote a Sherlock
Holmes short story "A Case of Mis-Identity",
part of a collection of short stories published
under the title "Morse's Greatest Mystery",
in which Watson's practical knowledge of the
circumstances of a case outwits both Sherlock
and Mycroft.
Agatha Christie in The Big Four introduced
"Achille Poirot, the brother of Hercule Poirot".
This is considered a deliberate parody of
Mycroft Holmes. (In one passage, Hercule Poirot
actually says: "Don't you know that every
detective has a brother who is smarter but
less practical than himself?") Later in the
book, Christie gives the impression that in
fact "Achille" was Poirot himself in disguise.
The Holmes brothers are mentioned again in
The Labors Of Hercules, in which one of Poirot's
friends teases him about his unusual Christian
name. He jokes that Mrs. Poirot and Mrs. Holmes
must have collaborated when naming their sons.
In John Dickson Carr's "Sir Henry Merrivale"
novels, the brilliant, overweight Military
Intelligence chief is compared to Mycroft
Holmes, much to his annoyance.
A resemblance has been noted between Mycroft
Holmes and Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe; it has
been suggested that they may have been related.
There no evidence that Stout himself intended
this to be the case. The best-known form of
this hypothesis — popularised by William
S. Baring-Gould, who wrote "biographies" of
both Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe — holds
that Wolfe is the offspring of Sherlock and
Irene Adler.
At one point it was planned for Gregory House
(who is based on Sherlock Holmes) to have
an elder brother who was based on Mycroft.
Stephen Fry (who was the comedic partner of
Hugh Laurie) was to play him but was unable,
due to other commitments. Fry did take on
the role of Mycroft in the sequel to the 2009
Sherlock Holmes film.
In the TV series Numb3rs episode Angels and
Devils, Larry Fleinhardt, played by Peter
MacNicol, says: "I have rather always fancied
myself more as a Mycroft than a Dr. Watson."
He expands upon this reference in the series
finale when he assumes the role of math/science
expert for the FBI in place of Charlie Eppes
saying, "...like Sherlock's brother Mycroft
Holmes, I prefer to do the conceptualizing,
leaving the grunt work to others."
In Nobuhiro Watsuki's manga series Embalming
-The Another Tale of Frankenstein-, Asuhit
Richter goes to the Diogenes Club in London
to meet one of the club's founders and his
client "Mike Roft", a play on Mycroft, who
is also a high-standing government official.
Mike remarks that "if you are looking for
someone, my younger brother is quite good
at that type of thing" and has him locate
Dr. Peabody and Fury Flatliner. Only the younger
brother's silhouette is shown, but it is obviously
that of Sherlock Holmes.
In the Honor Harrington novel A Rising Thunder,
the name Mycroft is used as the code designation
for a new Manticoran missile fire control
system to be deployed for system defense,
based somewhat upon the Havenites' 'Moriarty'
system (the name of which is a reference to
Professor Moriarty).
