TV and Streaming – Page 7 – A Damn Fine Cup of Culture

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #91: Three Sherlocks

Apr 5, 2025Apr 5, 2025The Barista Collective1 Comment

To many fans of detective fiction, he’s the greatest sleuth of them all: Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. He’s figured in many stories, novels, films, TV series and video games, to mention just a few of Mr Holmes’ exploits. He survived death by Reichenbach Falls, he appeared in the Victorian era and beyond, including adaptations in present-day England and America. And yet: to date, the greatest detective has only appeared on this site very, very rarely. Well, in the podcast episode we’re releasing today, this will be remedied, as Julie, Sam and Alan share their deductions about three cinematic takes on Sherlock Holmes: the 1939 film The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Ida Lupino; Billy Wilder’s 1970 classic The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, in which Robert Stephens and Colin Lively play the iconic Holmes and Watson; and the 1976 made-for-TV film Sherlock Holmes in New York, which has Roger Moore don the inauthentic yet iconic deerstalker – and John Huston take on the role of Holmes’ nemesis Moriarty. Which of these do justice to Sherlock Holmes? Which are worth watching, and which are better given a miss? Make sure to join our trio of pop culture baristas as they get out their magnifying glasses and investigate the case of Three Sherlocks. The game’s afoot!

And if you’d like to hear more about less-than-successful takes on Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective or indeed other iconic trios, make sure to check out these past episodes:

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Christmas Special 2017, in which Damn Fine O.G.s Matt and Mege share their dismay at the final episode (to date) of BBC’s modern-day Sherlock (warning: this was our first attempt at podcasting, so the audio quality is… Victorian, one might say)
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #73: Three Draculas, in which Julie, Sam and Matt talk about three takes on another classic figure of Victorian literature, though one more likely to drain your blood than solve your murder

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Hello, Mr Anderson

Mar 30, 2025MattLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

This week saw the first post of new contributor Alastair Bickley: in last Friday’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, he wrote about the first three minutes of the Sherlock Holmes mystery “The Priory School”, as adapted for ITV, starring Jeremy Brett. Once again, there’s no trailer – but the entire episode is on YouTube, so here’s that particular treat for all the Sherlock-heads out there!

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #227: The First Three Minutes of The Priory School

Mar 28, 2025Apr 14, 2025Alastair Bickley3 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Things start on a note of surprise, for something is already afoot.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: The ship sails ever, ever on

Mar 23, 2025Mar 23, 2025MattLeave a comment

What comes to your mind when you hear The Lord of the Rings and the name “Ian Holm”? For most, it’ll probably be Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – but for Alan, it’s the BBC radio adaptation from 1981. Sadly, there are generally no trailers for radio shows, definitely not for ones that are 44 years old, so let’s instead do one better – and link to the actual episode. Enjoy!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Girls and Boys Come Out to Play

Mar 16, 2025Mar 16, 2025The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

What do people think about when they hear Switzerland? Cheese? Watches? Lax bank laws? Or is it Heidi? Though, as Sam wrote in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, it’s by no means the case that Heidi is purely Swiss – in some ways, she’s the whole world’s Swiss girl.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #225: Heidi, you’re not in Switzerland anymore!

Mar 14, 2025Apr 14, 2025samlinder3 Comments

Growing up in Switzerland, everyone is of course hyper-aware of its uber-famous orphan story Heidi, Johanna Spyri’s 1880 novel about an alpine transplant who performs miracles on grumps, frumps and wheelchair-bound aristocrats. Needless to say that even much before the iconic 1974 Japanese animé adaptation so poignantly remembered in Matt’s last post, Heidi had become a global ambassador for idealised images of our country and had spawned a wide range of stage, film and TV adaptations. And despite Switzerland’s best efforts, the most interesting versions were contributed by other countries and cultures, and I don’t just mean Japan.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Domo arigato, Swiss Miss

Mar 9, 2025MattLeave a comment

What’s the kids’ TV we grew up with? For Matt, who grew up in Switzerland, it was a surprising number of TV series based on European children’s books but made in Japan. (Okay, this is not a trailer so much as it is the title sequence of Heidi, Girl of the Alps in the Japanese original, I know, but what can you do.)

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #224: When I was a child, I watched as a child

Mar 7, 2025Mar 14, 2025Matt3 Comments

I wonder: there must be researchers that analyse the children’s TV programmes that people grow up with, across generations and countries. If so, what does their research say about the shows I grew up with, in 1980s Switzerland?

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: What’s in the envelope?

Mar 2, 2025Mar 2, 2025The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

For a franchise that has had eleven films so far, you’d think the movies would be good, wouldn’t you? Well, Alan’s gone and watched the entire Pink Panther series of films, and he’s not a fan. Check out his good reasons to be grateful that he took this particular hit for the team!

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Do the monkey!

Feb 23, 2025Feb 23, 2025The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Whether you’re a martial arts fan or not, don’t miss this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees, in which Julie writes about the Hong Kong extravaganza Iron Monkey, starring Donnie Yen.