'Think radio drama — treated seriously and not as inferior to TV — with a continuous soundtrack. Neil Brand, the writer, composer and silent film accompanist, has made the genre his own in the past decade, with similar adaptations of A Christmas Carol and The Wind in the Willows. And Arthur Conan Doyle’s suspenseful story is ideal Christmas fodder for the modern mainstream. The novel is pared back into a three-part, cliffhanger-packed, 90-minute show, with seven characterful actors providing the narration and dialogue, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra doing the musical honours.

It works wonderfully. Conan Doyle’s vividly pictorial writing transports us without the need for set, scenery or visuals. We’re there in rural Dartmoor, looking out of manor house windows at mysterious lights, or watching the ominous fog roll in. Our imaginations are engaged. And this is a story that plays on a fear of the unseen: the devilish hound, the escaped convict. The most dangerous threats lurk out of sight.

That’s where the music comes in. A retelling of a Victorian classic could all too easily be fusty, predictable, hammed-up or old-fashioned. Especially because Brand uses his musicians to add sound effects — yes, we even get clip-clopping coconuts for horse hoofs. But his score, effectively orchestrated by the conductor Timothy Brock, layers up atmosphere and psychological complexity. Brooding strings and baleful brass add unease and melancholy. Brand writes of being immersed in the Hammer Horror scores written by the British modernists in the 1950s; their influence is felt.

Sherlock’s own instrument, the violin, is given its starring moment, with two short, yearning solos played by the leader Stephen Bryant. But it’s the eerie, dying moan motif in the horns, signalling the beastly canine, that lingers in the mind, heralding an added twist that I won’t spoil.

And how does Gatiss shape up? He’s shrewd, analytical, and intellectually assured to the point of arrogance: a fine Sherlock, in other words. Playing Watson to his Holmes is the brilliant Sanjeev Bhaskar, also no stranger to the crime genre after his run in ITV’s Unforgotten. Give this detective duo their own show.'

The Times (Rebecca Franks), 21 December 2022