A Case of Identity
“It was most suggestive,” said Holmes. “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important."
Mistaken identity, evil stepfathers, and the importance of a good optician. “A Case of Identity” (from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) has a plot fit for a Shakespeare play - without the narrative satisfaction. In this surprisingly sinister armchair detective story, we discuss skeevy men, Peter Pan, Watson's eye for color and the complicated undercurrent of misogyny running beneath the narrative.
Find a transcript - Further reading for this episode
Listen to our narration:
Lucille Valentine is a desert rat masquerading as a voice actor, poetry and fiction writer, visual artist, and sensitivity consultant. You can hear her in numerous podcasts, including The Six Disappearances of Ella McCray, The Easiest of All the Hard Things, and The 12:37, or by pressing your ear up against a cactus skeleton on a windy night. Follow her on Twitter.
Music credit: The songs “Denmark (Live)” by the Portland Cello Project and Ma mère l’Oye: IV. Les Entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête by Maurice Ravel, performed by Felipe Sarro, are featured with an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Further reading:
“A Case of Mis-Identity",” Colin Dexter
Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, Frogwares games
Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare
The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole
The Stepfather, dir. Joseph Ruben
Other cases mentioned in this discussion: COPP, SCAN, SECO