Benedict Cumberbatch and Sherlock Holmes is match made in history

Why does actor Benedict Cumberbatch cut such a dash as British literary detective Sherlock Holmes?

That's elementary, according to genealogy website Ancestry.com. Cumberbatch is distantly related to author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the brilliant but quirky sleuth some 130 years ago, the website said on Sunday.

Cumberbatch, 40, star of the Emmy award-winning BBC TV series, "Sherlock," is a 16th cousin, twice removed of Doyle.

The two are related through 14th century English nobleman John of Gaunt, who, according to records, was Cumberbatch's 17th great-grandfather and Conan Doyle's 15th great-grandfather, Ancestry researchers said.

John of Gaunt, born about 1340, was a son of England's King Edward III, meaning that Cumberbatch and Conan Doyle also have a distant royal connection.

"How rare that an actor in a major series has the chance to play a character created by a relative, especially one as iconic as Sherlock Holmes," said Jennifer Utley, a family historian at Ancestry.

"Sherlock," a modern twist on the life and investigations of the 19th century London detective, first aired in 2010 and returns for its fourth series on Sunday on both U.S. and British television.

The show, in which Cumberbatch plays Holmes as a haughty, socially inept detective to Martin Freeman's calm, practical Dr. John Watson, is the most popular TV drama in Britain, according to ratings data, and has been sold to 180 other countries.

Conan Doyle published the first of about 60 Sherlock Holmes stories in 1887. The eccentric, violin-playing character has since become one of the best-known fictional detectives in the world and the inspiration for hundreds of movies, stage plays, books and TV shows.

Ancestry said its researchers looked at everything from church records, censuses, land deeds, newspaper announcements and tombstones to establish the link between Cumberbatch and Conan Doyle.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

BBC's Sherlock returns from the dead

LONDON -- Benedict Cumberbatch made his long-awaited comeback as Sherlock Holmes on Wednesday, but the hit BBC series still left fans scratching their heads over how the super-sleuth managed to cheat death.

The show's creators teased fans by depicting some of the more far-fetched ways Holmes may have survived, in a nod to the speculation that has swept the Internet since he leapt from a rooftop a year ago in an apparent suicide bid.

The BBC series, starring Cumberbatch as a modern-day version of the 19th century British detective, has been broadcast in more than 200 countries since 2010.

When British Prime Minister David Cameron set up a page on China's Twitter-like website Weibo in November, one of the most popular questions he was asked was, "When is the third series of 'Sherlock' due for release?"

There were plenty of surprises for fans in the first episode of the new series, including a cameo appearance by Cumberbatch's own parents.

But some viewers complained that the storyline, centering on a terrorist plot to blow up the British parliament, was difficult to follow.

Fans delighted and disappointed alike flooded the Internet with comments and reactions.

The Times newspaper gave the episode four stars, but complained: "You wait two years to find out how Sherlock dunnit, and three solutions come along at once."

The series has helped both Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, who plays his loyal sidekick Doctor Watson, to Hollywood stardom.

Freeman plays the eponymous "Hobbit" in the new movie trilogy.

Cumberbatch starred last year as the villain in the latest "Star Trek" film and as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in "The Fifth Estate". He also features in the latest instalment of "The Hobbit" as the voice of the dragon Smaug.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com