Theatre • Conan Doyle wrote an adaptation for the stage in 1910,
The Speckled Band. It premiered at the
Adelphi Theatre, London, on 4 June 1910, transferred to the
Globe Theatre on 8 August and closed on 29 October after 169 performances. The following year the play was seen in Manchester at the Prince's Theatre and may have toured the British provinces. • In autumn 2013, a new stage adaptation,
Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band, by Max Gee premiered at Treasurer's House, York and Ripley Castle, Ripley, North Yorks. The play was produced by Theatre Mill, directed by Samuel Wood, and starred Liam Tims as Holmes and Adam Elms as Watson.
Film • The short story was also adapted for the now-
lost 1912 British–French short film
The Speckled Band as part of the
Éclair film series featuring
Georges Tréville as Sherlock Holmes. • A 1923 silent short film was adapted in the
Stoll film series starring
Eille Norwood as Holmes. • The 1931 film
The Speckled Band, starring
Raymond Massey as the detective, was an adaptation of Conan Doyle's stage play, with
Lyn Harding reprising his role as Grimesby Roylott. • The 1944 film
The Spider Woman is based on several Holmes stories, among them "The Speckled Band".
Radio and audio dramas • The premiere episode of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes featured an adaptation of the story on 20 October 1930 and starred
William Gillette as Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Watson. The production was adapted by
Edith Meiser. A remake of the script aired on 17 September 1931, with
Richard Gordon playing Sherlock Holmes and Leigh Lovell again playing Dr. Watson. Another dramatization of the story aired in February 1933 with Gordon and Lovell, though it is unclear if this was a repeated recording or a new production. A remake of the script aired on 1 February 1936, with Gordon as Holmes and Harry West as Watson. • A half-hour radio adaptation starring
Basil Rathbone and
Nigel Bruce was broadcast as an episode of the series
The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on 16 October 1939, again adapted by Edith Meiser. Other episodes adapted from the story also aired in March 1941, October 1943, and November 1945, again with Rathbone and Bruce playing Holmes and Watson respectively. A half-hour radio adaptation starring
Tom Conway as Holmes and Bruce as Watson was broadcast on 23 June 1947. A half-hour radio adaptation starring John Stanley as Holmes and
Wendell Holmes (using the pseudonym "
George Spelvin") as Watson aired as an episode of the same series on 19 December 1948, and was adapted by
Max Ehrlich. • A 1945
BBC Home Service adaptation, dramatised by
John Dickson Carr, starred
Cedric Hardwicke as Holmes and
Finlay Currie as Watson. • A 1948 radio adaptation on the Home Service, also adapted by John Dickson Carr, featured
Howard Marion-Crawford as Holmes, with Finlay Currie again playing Watson. • A half-hour BBC radio adaptation was broadcast in July 1962 on the
BBC Light Programme, as part of the
1952–1969 radio series starring
Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and
Norman Shelley as Watson.
Michael Hardwick adapted the production. • In 1970, an audio drama based on the story was released on
LP record, as one of several recordings starring
Robert Hardy as Holmes and
Nigel Stock as Watson. It was dramatized and produced by Michael Hardwick (who also adapted the 1962 radio adaptation) and
Mollie Hardwick. • A one-hour radio adaptation was broadcast as an episode of the series
CBS Radio Mystery Theater on 28 June 1977. The episode starred
Kevin McCarthy as Sherlock Holmes and Court Benson as Dr. Watson. • A
BBC Radio 4 dramatisation adapted by Vincent McInerney aired on 9 January 1991, as part of the
1989–1998 radio series starring
Clive Merrison as Holmes and
Michael Williams as Watson. It also featured
Susan Wooldridge as Helen Stoner. • The story was adapted as a 2015 episode of the radio series
The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with
John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes and Lawrence Albert as Watson. • In 2024, the story was adapted as the first three episodes of the
Sherlock Holmes Short Stories podcast, read by
Hugh Bonneville and produced by the
Noiser Podcast Network.
Television • A half-hour television adaptation starring
Alan Napier and
Melville Cooper was broadcast as the tenth episode of the
NBC Television series
Your Show Time on 25 March 1949. This is one of the earliest known television appearances of Holmes. • The pilot episode of the BBC's 1964–1965 series
Sherlock Holmes was a new version of "The Speckled Band", airing in May 1964 as part of the
Detective anthology series. The episode was written by
Giles Cooper, was directed by Robin Midgley, and starred
Douglas Wilmer as Holmes,
Nigel Stock as Watson and
Felix Felton as Roylott. • "The Speckled Band" was
adapted for the screen in the USSR in 1979 with
Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and
Vitaly Solomin as Doctor Watson. • "The Case of the Speckled Band" was the second episode of the Polish TV series
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, with
Geoffrey Whitehead as Sherlock Holmes and
Donald Pickering as Doctor Watson, first broadcast in 1979. • "The Speckled Band" was the sixth episode of the first series of
Holmes adaptations by Granada Television starring
Jeremy Brett as
Sherlock Holmes and
David Burke as
Dr. John Watson, first broadcast in 1984, with
Rosalie Williams as
Mrs. Hudson,
Jeremy Kemp as Dr. Grimesby Roylott,
Rosalyn Landor as Helen Stoner,
Denise Armon as Julia Stoner and
Stephen Mallatratt as Percy Armitage. • "The Speckled Band" was adapted as part of the 1984–85 anime series
Sherlock Hound. In this version, Moriarty poses as Roylott to steal Helen's money, and Hound gets involved when his motorcar breaks down and must stay at their home for the night. •
Kōki Mitani adapted "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" and "
The Creeping Man" to an episode in the NHK puppetry series
Sherlock Holmes. One night, a swamp adder with
crocus-shaped speckles is found in Beeton School. On the next day, trainee teacher Helen Stoner visits Holmes and Watson in 221B of Baker Dormitory and tells them about the strange behaviour of Grimesby Roylott who teaches chemistry. That night they find out what his behaviour means but Sherman, a female pupil is attacked by the adder. • The animated television series
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century featured an adaptation of the story called "The Scales of Justice". In this story, Dr. Grimesby Roylott is a herpetologist and Helen is his daughter. Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade suspect Roylott's colleague, Thornus Chapman, of having created a snake creature who was committing robberies like how he created the other
biological Chimeras. It is later revealed that Roylott had used Chapman's technology to turn himself into a
python hybrid. Holmes defeats Roylott's python form by knocking him out with cold water.
Video games •
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures adapted "The Speckled Band" into the game's second episode, "The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band".
Other adaptations • "Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band" is among the Bepuzzled series of mystery puzzle games by
University Games Corporation. This entry in the series is unique in that included story is not written by a modern author, but is instead the entirety of Conan Doyle's original tale, used to introduce the mystery to which the assembled puzzle image displays the solution. == References ==