How does Martin Clunes pass the time between the end of one Doc Martin series and the beginning of another? Elementary, my dear Watson. He signs on to play Sherlock Holmes creator, Arthur Conan Doyle. The three-part adaptation of Julian Barnes’ novel Arthur & George, the ITV drama will tell the story of Conan Doyle’s real-life attempts to clear George Edalji, a half-Indian solicitor who was imprisoned for a series of attacks on livestock in the Staffordshire community of Great Wyrley.
 

Interestingly, it was the Sherlock creator’s expert evaluation of the evidence in the case that not only cleared Edalji of any wrongdoing, but it helped establish the Court of Criminal Appeal in 1907. At that time, there was no concept as of yet for the procedure of a retrial. It was Conan Doyle’s analysis of the facts in a series of articles published in the Daily Telegraph that caught both the public’s attention and that of the British government also. The committee decided that Edalji was innocent of the livestock mutilations and The Law Society readmitted him allowing him to return to practice as a solicitor.

Filming is set to begin this Autumn with a targeted transmission of 2015 on ITV.