Arthur and George

[GhostsToMonsoon]

Anyone watching this tonight (ITV, 9pm)?

I'm mainly excited about it because it's set partly in Great Wyrley, where I grew up (to paraphrase Bill Bryson, somebody had to). I vaguely recall a friend at high school telling me something about an animal cruelty case long ago but other than that I'm ashamed to admit I'd never heard of George Edalji and was unaware of the historical significance of Conan Doyle's involvement until I read Julian Barnes's novel.

All that aside it looks like a promising drama and will be interesting to learn more about the life of the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

The book leaves lots of questions unanswered. Why did the Rev Edalji always lock the door of the bedroom - and why was he sharing it with George? If George was alive today, would he have been diagnosed as being in the autistic spectrum? Why didn't Jean make more of a fuss when Toulie died and ACD spent so long before getting married to her?

I wonder if they'll address those in the programme, but normally it seems that chunks of books get missed out rather than loose ends being tied up or more material included. I should probably re-read the book (I read it about 10 years ago) as I have doubtless forgotten a lot of the plot (Julian Barnes has also said that it doesn't always strictly follow the historical record).

i like martin clunes - this was a bit too soporific but i want to enjoy it

I'm not normally a huge Clunes fan and it was strange hearing him put on a Scottish accent but on the whole I thought he was quite good in the role.
It seemed to rush through a lot of the background to the case but will be interesting to see how he clears Edalji's name.

Was looking forward to this, but couldn't understand a word Martin said. Had to watch again on +1 with subtitles!

Still don't know how Arthur became interested in the case of the horse cruelty. Can anyone who has read the book give us a precis of what happened last night so that we can follow next week??

I realise his wife died and there is another waiting in the wings and he is being encouraged to resurrect Sherlock from the dead but what else???