There are lots of similar collections out there, but this one is special because it was given away for free!
On Saturday, September 1, 2007, the Daily Express, a British newspaper, announced that it would be giving away the Sherlock Holmes Collection on DVD to every reader.
This collection features the amazing Ian Richardson and starts with a full-length version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was first shown on film in 1983 and received rave reviews.
The collection continued on Monday, September 3rd, with The Sign of Four, also first released in 1983.
Four more dramas kept the series going through the week in the Express until Friday. These DVDs come from the BBC series Murder Rooms – Mysteries of The Real Sherlock Holmes, and include these stories: ‘The White Knight Stratagem’, ‘The Photographer’s Chair’, ‘The Kingdom of Bones’ and ‘The Patient’s Eyes’. The DVDs did not include The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, which was the two-part pilot for the series.
For these dramas, Ian Richardson didn’t play Sherlock Holmes but Dr Joseph Bell, who Conan Doyle said was the main inspiration for the famous detective. Charles Edwards played Conan Doyle in this series, acting as ‘Watson’ to Richardson’s ‘Holmes’.
To get your Daily Express DVDs, you had to cut a voucher from each edition of the Daily Express, from Saturday 1st to Friday 7th. You could pick them up each day at your local WHSmith and swap them for each of the six DVDs. Alternatively, you could collect at least four different tokens and send them with a cheque for £5.95 to cover postage and packing, so you could get all six DVDs by post.
The offer ended on October 5th, 2007.
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