Go on, just say that out loud a couple of times. It is, without question, one of the greatest combination of letters ever to grace a birth certificate. What? A great actor? Damn sexy? Who? Stop it. You’re getting ahead of yourself. At the moment I’m just fan-girling about his name.
The last two weeks “Sunday night drama on the ABC” has been something called Small Island. I wasn’t all that interested (only as interested as I am by default) until I noticed it has Mr Cumberbath in it, and he was playing a character called Bernard.
I have a few favourite names, Bernard being a long standing choice while Benedict is a recent addition (others include Davy and Marmaduke, pity my children). You might be wondering how anyone can make television choices for such fickle reasons. I can. Deal with it.
I did kind of enjoy Small Island. I didn’t turn it off or change the channel. As far as Sunday Night Drama goes I’ve seen worse (does anyone remember Line of Beauty?) But on a scale of one to Moffat, this script would be lucky to scrape a three. I’ve been doing writing workshops in primary schools lately and if a twelve year old can understand the basic premise of “show don’t tell” so can someone capable of getting a two part mini-series made by the BBC. Some of that voiceover made me want to stick pencils in my ears.
The acting however, was rather good. Which brings me around to the actual point (yes, that’s right there is one). Mr Cumberbatch is, I think you will all agree, totally amazing in Sherlock. There aren’t enough superfluous adjectives to describe his performance. I’ve been reading the original stories lately and he is that role. He fits every single description of what Holmes should be. I can picture other Johns but Benedict Cumberbatch is more or less Sherlock Holmes incarnate.
Which means that every other character he plays is going to seem slightly off. He’s played the role he was quite possibly born to play, so I can't help but feel its pretty much downhill from here. Which is a shame because he stands to play a lot of roles in the future. Is that type casting? Its not really is it? Its something else entirely. Maybe there isn’t even a word for it.
I nominate Cumberbatching. Just because that should be a word.
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