David Welsborough as Arthur Conan Doyle

Remember this guy in s4ep1, ‘The Six Thatchers’ (TST)?

(x)

Did you know the same actor also played Arthur Conan Doyle on the show ‘Murder Rooms’ – quite successfully, I might add?

So, what if there’s a meta level to consider here: What if this actor was chosen for this part on ‘Sherlock’ precisely because we were supposed to read David Welsborough as Doyle?

…Doyle the ‘father’ of the fictional character Sherlock Holmes who never saw his creation ‘come out of the closet’!

This would give us three interpretative levels of the Charlie Welsborough case in TST:

(More under the cut…)

Yes, I know what you’ll probably say: Actors aren’t defined by the parts they played in the past; we shouldn’t confuse actors with the roles they play, etc.

But!

But…Not only is series 4 the series that made fourth-wall-breaking into a sport, no, the casting process is also usually influenced by whatever acting history and experience an actor brings to the job.

Also, let’s not forget that, ahem, meaningful casting decisions aren’t exactly a new phenomenon on ‘Sherlock’: A lot of people have pointed out that Toby Jones as Culverton Smith is a, shall we say, interesting choice, seeing as he played the Dreamlord on ‘Doctor Who’ and a lot of us suspect ‘Sherlock’ series 4 (at the very least) to be a dream.

@mr-brightside24 has pointed out here that the actress who played Nurse Cornish in TLD played the sister of the bisexual character Ianto Jones on ‘Torchwood’, making the casting of this actress a sly little reference to John’s sister on ‘Sherlock’ (and a hint at John’s possible definite bisexuality).

So, I can totally see them picking the actor Charles Edwards for the part of David Welsborough because he evokes feelings of ‘Oh-hang-on-he-played-Doyle-didn’t-he’ in a British audience. It’s Mofftiss’ sly trademark style of playing with meta readings of the show.

‘Cause if we read Mycroft as The Author™, Moriarty as all earlier adaptations of ‘Sherlock Holmes’, and Wilder in TAB as a representation of Billy Wilder ( “Thank you, Wilder,”), why shouldn’t we read David Welsborough as ACD himself? 

(And yes, yes, I know it’s more complicated than that and that Mofftiss are currently playing with the idea that Moriarty represents them, the storytellers. But bear with me for a moment, okay?)

Think about the first name they chose for Mr Welsborough: David.

They had used the name David once already: in TSoT…

Back then, they used this name to (at least) cast suspicion on the paternity of John and Mary’s baby. 

Whether David, indeed, turns out to be the real father, or whether the baby even exists, is neither here nor there, the fact remains that they used the name David to (at least) signal to us that this might be someone’s REAL FATHER.

Think about it: Doyle is the real, actual father of Sherlock Holmes. Not Wilder, not Moffat, not Gatiss, nor any of the countless other script writers of the 20th century. It’s Doyle!

Add to that the fact that Charlie Welsborough is an obvious Sherlock mirror (what with travelling to Tibet, like ACD!Sherlock Holmes after his fake death at the Reichenbach Falls)…So, we’re obviously supposed to read Charlie Welsborough as Sherlock on the show.

Remember how ‘Many Happy Returns’ specifically showed us a mountainous landscape for the Buddhist monastery scene at the beginning?

That’s where Sherlock was hanging out during the hiatus between TRF and TEH. So, it’s not just an ACD!canon thing. Our Sherlock was there, too.

And now look where Charlie Welsborough got off to:

Charlie even tells his father, “Didn’t you see the mountains?” just in case we wouldn’t get the connection.

But if we read the Charlie Welsborough case simply on a literal and subtextual level as BBC!Sherlock being unable to come out and pretty much ‘suffocating’ in the closet, the connection to his father remains unclear.

What’s up with Sherlock’s dad on the show? Nothing much. Is David Welsborough really a good mirror for Sherlock’s father on the show? 

It just doesn’t look like Sherlock has a troubled relationship with his dad. In fact, his choice of love interests seems to be influenced by the role model set by his dad. Granted, I could be wrong about this, and maybe they will, at some point, reveal something deeply troubling in Sherlock’s past that’s connected to his dad, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me at the moment.

However, if we’re supposed to read this on a meta level (instead of merely on a subtextual one alone), then it makes perfect sense: The ‘Dad’ in question is Doyle. The troubled relationship is the one between the creation and its creator!

A creator who loves his creation and yet doesn’t really, fully understand it.

Remember what the Welsborough parents say about Charlie: “He was our whole world.”

And in a sense, Sherlock Holmes was Doyle’s whole world, however much he might have hated the idea himself: This character is what defines Doyle’s legacy. It’s who he is to us as an author.

Sherlock Holmes is Doyle’s whole world, but at the same time, Doyle could never let him come out of the closet (we can only speculate about what Doyle thought about the issue), he just couldn’t because he was stuck in a conservative time.

In a sense, that’s what we get with David Welsborough too: not an overly malicious evil character, probably a good dad, but one who is stuck with his conservative views on the matter (a Cabinet minister!). 

I mean, the tragedy of the actual Charlie Welsborough case in TST is basically that both of them, the father and the son, are fated to remain children forever! 

Charlie Welsborough can never come out of the closet and thus will remain a child forever, never becoming an adult with an open, fulfilling, happy love life. 

And the dad, in his own way, will remain a child forever too: 

He’ll never get the chance to challenge his own beliefs and maybe (at least) start a discussion with his son on the issue. The dad is stuck and will, in a sense, remain a child, who is utterly childish and besotted with a conservative idol (I mean, a Thatcher shrine, a shrine! Like a teenager with his favourite sports idol! Come on!). 

The tragedy here is that this probably utterly good, but also utterly clueless man will never grow as a father figure, never have an actual conversation with his son, never see his son for what he is and never have that moment later on in his life where he sits down with his child and says, “You know, son, we will have to agree to disagree on what Thatcher did to the unions, but I’m beginning to see your point when it comes to what she did to gay men.” 

(And yes, I’m talking from experience here. I’m pretty sure David Welsborough would be the type of father who, at some point, together with his Conservative Prime Minister would have voted for gay marriage. Because that’s what actually happened. Not because people change completely and entirely – they rarely do – but because they redefine the issue for themselves. Looking at David Welsborough, I’m pretty sure he would have come round and eventually would have been the kind of father to keep nagging, “Son, any chance of you finally finding yourself a steady boyfriend, getting married, buying a house and adopting half a dozen children?” The kind of father who waits for his son to turn into his gay poster child. And Charlie would have just laughed and rolled his eyes at his old-fashioned dad. I think it would have been possible.)

But the point is: None of this happened. They never got the chance.

Because the closet is too suffocating, too restricting for it. Charlie never grew up to be an adult and to be ‘out’. And his father never grew up to (at least) question some of his beliefs. They both remained stuck, the son in the closet, the father in his childish, naive Thatcher-idolizing-phase. Growth was impossible for them because the closet was too overpowering, too horrible, because it defined everything they did. The closet didn’t allow for this growth to happen.

That’s what I’m personally taking away from these scenes. 

And that’s why I think it would fit the Charlie-&-his-father as Sherlock-Holmes-&-Doyle reading so well: 

Doyle was stuck in a conservative time and he was forced to keep Sherlock Holmes in the closet and eventually kill him. Sherlock Holmes was never given the chance to grow as a character. (Not in that way, at least.) And Doyle was never allowed to grow himself as an author. They both remained stuck, stunted in their growth.

And that would make perfect sense as the meta message we’re supposed to take away from this:

Mofftiss showed us Wilder in TAB to tell us where they took their inspiration from, and they’re now telling us what Doyle himself couldn’t do. 

Which, in turn, can mean only one thing: That they WILL do what Doyle couldn’t!

Do we get another hint that we’re supposed to take previous roles the actors have played seriously?

Yes, in fact, we do.

Not only did the actor who plays David Welsborough famously play Doyle himself…

…but the actor who plays the son, Charlie Welsborough, played a famous gay character before!

Rob Callender is still very young, and I’m sure he’s a fine actor, but he hasn’t played that many roles yet. There’s, however, one that I’m absolutely certain at least Mark Gatiss took notice of: he played Guy Bennett (the leading role) in the play ‘Another Country’.

Guy Bennett is not just a gay character, the part is based on the life of Guy Burgess, the infamous gay spy. And the entire play is basically about how difficult it is to come out of the closet. No way this casting decision was a coincidence!

(If you’re unfamiliar with the play, the probably most famous monologue from it is up on youtube. It’s from the film adaptation with Rupert Everett as the gay guy who’s telling his best friend, played by Colin Firth, what’s what.)

So, we have an actor who previously played Doyle play David Welsborough and an actor who previously performed in a leading role on stage, in a play that is all about how oppressive the closet is and how difficult it is to come out, as Charlie Welsborough, aka, the Sherlock mirror.

Come on! What do we say about coincidences…

We’re supposed to read them as Doyle and his creation Sherlock Holmes, I’m certain of this.

By the way, Mofftiss have (low-key) played with this idea before: 

In ‘The Blind Banker’ (yes, the episode that gave us a sculpture of a gay God sitting right between Sherlock and John!), the teensy-tiny part of the dead banker Eddie Van Coon was played by an actor who’s best known for the role of a gay man in another show:

He played a gay character (leading role) on ‘Sinchronicity’ – a gay character struggling to come out.

I would call this a total casting coincidence if it weren’t for the fact that he played opposite Paul Chequer, who played his best (albeit straight) friend on ‘Sinchronicity’. And well, guess what? Paul Chequer turned up on ‘Sherlock’ too…as DI Dimmock:

And he didn’t just turn up as Dimmock at some point on the show, no, he turned up in exactly the same episode (TBB) and in connection to the Van Coon case!

The above screencap shows us Van Coon (the Sherlock mirror) and Dimmock (the John mirror) together with Sherlock and John in one clever shot.

So, again…an actor who played a gay character struggling to come out of the closet playing a Sherlock mirror who died in a locked room…and an actor who played the gay guy’s best friend playing a John mirror…Too many coincidences for me.

This casting decision has to be intentional. 

(As for the mirrors: Van Coon wears similar clothes to Sherlock’s. Dimmock has the same haircut as John. Then, there’s the fact that Dimmock is directly reflected in the mirror opposite John, etc. You see where I’m going with this, right?)

And these two actors played a gay man struggling to come out of the closet and his best friend on another British show. A coincidence this is not!

So, in conclusion, I think it makes perfect sense that Mofftiss would up the ante in s4 and play up their little dig at Doyle by using actors who had previously become associated with the roles of Doyle and a gay man in the closet, respectively.

Addendum:

There’s also a little EMP idea that I would like to add. If you’re not into EMP, you can ignore this and skip right to the end. But I feel drawn more and more to an EMP explanation, so here goes:

An EMP theory which I haven’t read so far and which I’ll totally claim as my own:) is the following crack theory one: (And yes, I know it’s rubbish…)

Sherlock faked his death in TRF and left for Tibet. (We know he was there somewhere from the Buddhist monastery scenes in ‘Many Happy Returns’.)

Sherlock never came back, though. He’s still sitting crossed-legged on the ground in some sunny monastery courtyard, meditating. All of s3, TAB and s4 are his mediation on what might have been.

The reality of where he is and what he is actually doing is bleeding through in this dream scene in TAB here:

His actually being in a Buddhist monastery is also the reason why Sherlock dreams of Charlie Welsborough’s journey to Tibet:

He’s including all of these details in his dream as clues, to remind himself that this is just him meditating and not real.

And since Buddhism originated in India, that is also the reason for Sherlock’s sudden obsession with Agra. (Maybe Sherlock has a few Indian monks sitting and meditating right next to him.)

The monks in Sherlock’s vicinity would also explain his sudden obsession with headless nuns (in TSoT), his dream about the league of furies (in TAB) and his odd porn ideas about nuns who have holes in their habit (in TEH). Thank you @ebaeschnbliah for reminding me of that last scene again.:)

Well, and the fact that Sherlock lives in this Buddhist environment with monks from India would also explain why he started to include elephants in nearly every scene of his dream-meditation. Aaand not just in this one…

Want more crack evidence that Sherlock is sitting cross-legged in a courtyard, meditating, surrounded by monks, wearing pointy capes? 

Well…

So, there’s my crack EMP theory.:)

And since the ACD-canon!Victor Trevor left for Nepal, I’m just going to assume that he is somewhere right beside our BBC!Sherlock, making him tea encouraging him to, “Go and tell John!” ‘Cause my headcanon!Victor is the perfect wingman, you see.

And all the while, Irene’s ringtone keeps startling all the other monks out of their meditation, and Sherlock keeps screaming at his phone, “Jesus, you’d think I could have some peace and quiet in this monastery! I swear, this woman!”

More of my meta (especially the stuff about the sculptures used on ‘Sherlock’): HERE.

Transcripts from Ariane deVere.

(x) All the screencaps in this post were taken from here.

@sagestreet , I don’t know how I could have managed to miss this entire meta, but I do agree with the applauses; it’s simply brilliant!! Charlie and his dad, one actor playing ACD and one doing a gay character - I just can’t… And nurse Cornish’s actress playing Ianto Jones’ sister in Torchwood - wow! (I loved that show until Russel T Davis killed off Ianto, then I didn’t any more. Now I might reconsider the possible reasons why he actually did that). Dimmock and Van Coon, their actors even showing up in the same scene - amazing! And as for Charlie’s and Sherlock Holmes’ experience in Tibet, let me just remind you that Benedict Cumberbatch spent five months of his youth in a Tibetan monastery. ;).

For some odd reason, I now envision Yoda, with his slightly nasal vocie, calmly nodding and repeating your wise statement: ”A coincidence, this is not.” :))) These are not random choices by Mofftiss; they simply can’t be.

good one to re read!

has this been included in the catalog of fourth wall breaks?

But this is all in Anderson’s mind- oh. Ohhhhh.

There’s no such thing as a fourth wall break in ‘reality’, is there?

mmhmmm, if he's looking back at someone, then if it's anyone other than molly, his secret is out.

oh, and since every piece of glass in this show says "glass closet" to me now, is he going out of one now?

This has to be my favourite S4 fourth wall break… John using the audience’s POV of this scene as his phone wallpaper, rather than the picture Mrs Hudson actually took (which would… you know… show them looking into the camera).

wow

Um…

He’s looking straight into the camera, right? I’m not imagining that? 

you're not imagining it.

The Discrepancy

How the hell did we not notice this before…? Of course Sherlock’s been in a coma since the fall. Because in Anderson’s and that girl’s theory, Lazarus and the Actual scene, what is the same? Ok, not the exact same in every one but… this line, is said in each one:

‘Please, will you do this for me?’ 

Both in Anderson’s version and the Actual scene, the rest is said exactly the same. (Do what? This phone call, it’s, um, it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note. Leave a note when? Goodbye, John.)

The girl’s is slightly different because her’s is some kind of- I don’t wanna think about it. And Lazarus doesn’t have the full speech ‘cause Sherlock is showing off. Anyway, the point is, the only people who should know what was said, word for word (and the exact way it was said) are John and Sherlock. (And in Anderson’s version, it is said exactly the same, including the little ‘um’). Which points in the direction of EMP because no one else could know. And I honestly don’t think John would have shared Sherlock’s last words.

It was right there, in TEH, right in front of us, all this time.

 @not-a-bit-good (Tagging ‘cause I wanna see your opinion on this)

Wow, nice catch! :D

I don’t remember the scenes exactly, but you are right, it seems weird. It’s like Sherlock was being OOC in his OOCness, if you see what I mean?

And yeah, I really doubt John would share Sherlock’s last words with Anderson of all people (since he and Sally Donovan are partly responsible for Moriarty’s plan to discredit Sherlock working).

Maybe all those absurd theories was Sherlock’s brain trying to remember the fall but failing (as a consequence of the damage to Sherlock’s head)? So it filled in the blanks as best it could, ie not very well.

(brains hate contradictions, so if Sherlock remembered part of the fall, but not how he survived, while being aware of being alive, the fake theories would be his brain running through possible scenarios? – and God I do not want to know why it thought Sherlock could fake his death to elope with Jim Moriarty, thank god it’s just a dream and cuts off before they kiss) 

@kateis-cakeis

(Damn, I didn’t mean for this to be long. XD)

Sherlock being doubly ooc? Seems about right. Like his brain is so messed up he doesn’t know where he’s at or when.

Perhaps all the versions were his brain going through all the most plausible ways he could have survived and it eventually landed on Lazarus (When Sherlock talks about having plans but forgetting them all in TLD, I feel like that’s a clue towards him possibly having plans on the roof but forgetting them all in the moment or maybe he just didn’t have any at all).

The brain does try to fill in the blanks in every situation. You know how you sometimes hear the wrong words to a song for months, maybe years? That’s to do with your brain making predictions, so it’s more likely to hear something it expects than something it’s not used to. Like ‘Starbucks lovers’ being heard in Blank Space is more relatable than ‘Long list of ex-lovers’. So, Sherlock’s brain must have found the versions that were expected rather than the reality of the situation. I’m gonna try and interpret each one. 

Clearly Sherlock’s brain remembers the fall. How he fell, where he was on the roof, how he stood and the last words he had with John. (I wish I could explain why the bike is there in two out of three of the wild theories but I can’t because Sherlock couldn’t possibly know that, which makes me question the Actual scene). (Actually I’m beginning to question a lot of TRF as a whole, how much of that episode is real?)

Anderson’s: I like to think of Anderson’s version as the straight version. The version that made the most sense to Sherlock’s brain in terms of what the public expected of him. Of course, the rumours were that Sherlock and John were not just platonic so Sherlock’s brain in this theory jumped to the fact they were just platonic and found Molly as an expectation because of this.  The Derren Brown part was his brain really reaching (I think this was his brain running away with itself, betraying him a bit). Anderson’s theory defies logic mostly. So, this is the first theory Sherlock came up with and it was abandoned because of how far-fetched it was.

The girl’s: Sherlock’s brain would then assume that he didn’t jump at all. Sherlock is alive but if he didn’t smash through a window, then he mustn’t have jumped. So, it was a trick, just a magic trick. His brain remembers that line and so… A dummy. A dummy with his face stuck on. Now, he’s beside Moriarty giggling about the conversation with John… The only reason he wouldn’t have jumped is if he had teamed up with Moriarty or something – “I hope you’ll be very happy together.” His brain is making a connection back to TGG because, well, John made a joke and Sherlock’s brain was like HOLY SHIT THAT’S WHY I’M ALIVE. But then they almost kiss and his brain is like HOLY SHIT THIS ISN’T RIGHT, and shuts it down. (Using Anderson again).

LAZARUS: Fairly obviously, this is the one Sherlock’s brain landed on but still wasn’t sure about, considering it was still cryptic and still not fully explained. Anderson here is conveying the fact that, that’s not what happened at all. ‘Not how I would have done it’. His brain takes this version as fact because at that point, it’s the only one that both seems realistic and well planned out. Like he was prepared because, Sherlock’s always prepared. This fills in the blanks well enough and seems to be expected. He probably knows these techniques and wishes he could have used them.

But, none of those are the truth. Because Sherlock didn’t have a plan, couldn’t use techniques and instead was stuck with how to survive a fall. (In a few easy steps).

@ your tags, I always have doubts when writing the tags so I know I’m not really being delusional. And I don’t think we’re wrong either, it’s just reading the notes on your posts makes me think otherwise. :P And omg the commentary, that does raise red flags. That’s why they kept saying we weren’t listening, because we weren’t… Oh my god. 

@kateis-cakeis

Holy shit thank you for this amazing interpretation of those fake versions (^v^) ! TEH definitely makes much more sense as a dream!

re: rug pull: I’ve just remembered, in the S3 DVD Bonus Fans, Enemies and Hypotheses, Mark says:

And Mofftiss always make sure that 1) there are absolutey no spoilers and 2) they always change canon to surprise the people who’ve read the original stories!!!! like in THOB when Stappleton is innocent and a woman!!!!!! 

THIS WAS THE SIGN THAT MARY WASN’T REAL I’M SCREAMING

Bombs with off switches are totally insane, already, what’s more than a few theories about how he survived the show? That also means however than half the series isn’t real/in Sherlock’s head. If there is one source that leads me to believe we’re not in EMP after the fall however, it’s John blog. John’s blog hasn’t been updated since TSoT but we have seen his grief over his friend’s death and #sherlockholmes lives means #johnwatsonlives. The blog is our witness, our window to the serie’s reality. It is outside the show the only trustworthy information we have. This window to the show’s ‘real world’ vanished with HLV, not before. What happened during TEH and TSoT is real.

yep ! We have to keep the blog in mind, TEH and TSoT are real, it can’t be otherwise because of the blog, so if there is a EMP it’s began 1) after Mary shot sherlock or 2) in the plain. I lean towards the 1 because of the parent’s house scene which have a lot of dialogue in that way.

I suppose we do but, I don’t trust the blog. Definitely not since S4 and god knows how much of it we can actually trust, due to John being an unreliable narrator anyway.

Actually… Now that I think about it… In TLD everyone believes that Sherlock writes the blog and they don’t know who John is… What if - if we have indeed been in EMP since the fall - what if Sherlock has been writing posts in his mind. The posts we see are his own fabrications, probably pulled from real events that never made the cut on the blog. Probably the unsolved ones.

Mere speculation, I know. My point is, I’m not gonna take the blog as it is if I’m not taking the show as it is. I might have a good look through the blog tomorrow, see if anything pops out at me. Who knows? Something might, or maybe nothing will at all.

Interesting theory about the blog. Reason why they broke the fourth wall so much in S4 as well? @kateis-cakeis

I believe the fourth wall is in rubble all around us because Moftiss were trying to get us to see, make sure we know what’s real and what isn’t.

So yeah, I think this explains why the fourth wall was broke so many times because what we’re seeing isn’t real and for that reason, it’s totally fine to break the fourth wall. And if the blog cannot be trusted, what can?

THE blog. That damn thing has sort of been a source of fandom contention since the beginning. Is it canon? I believe it is but only to an extent. It’s not even really known to exist outside of fandom, so how much stock can we really take in anything that is posted in it? I mean, it has the wrong wedding date for John and Mary’s wedding. Is that a clue?? I don’t know. So to use the blog as proof against any theory is a slippery slope. I did have a look at it just now and I LOVE how in “The Empty Hearse” post we do get a bit of a nod to some of the EMP clues some of us have been discussing lately regarding real life and how it can bleed into a coma victims subconscious. John talking about being placed in the bonfire: “One of the scariest moments of my life. Trapped. Unable to move. I could hardly breathe. And all I could hear were children! Singing and laughing like they were in a horror movie.” I’m of a few minds on this that possibly should be in a separate post so I don’t derail this one any further. @tjlcisthenewsexy @gosherlocked @isitandwonder @ebaeschnbliah

Agree about John’s blog. It can’t be relevant the same way as the show itself … that what we watch on TV. Here lies the story. Everything else is windowdresing.

Why does John’s blog stop after the wedding? I think a reason for this could be because that’s the point where the ‘second case’ starts Sherlock is working on. He mentions this in TAB:

Magnusson lurks underneath the story already since TEH and TSOT. But this case really begins with HLV - to lead then straight away into TAB and beyond. What are the two cases then? I suspect that Sherlock first ponders the idea of an intimate/romantic relationship with John. That’s the 'first case’  It culminates in the wedding where Sherlock pictures himself at John’s side as married life partner (Mary being Sherlock’s avatar). But more and more problems are showing up. Even as early as in ASIB Sherlock asks his brother:

Then, after TSOT - after the wedding - things get really serious. Maybe Sherlock feels subconsciously that there is something lurking in his past … a lost memory … something dark and dangerous … something very imprtant. And when Sherlock tries to get hold of that memory which is symolized by Appledore, he is violently stopped by that part of himself that doesn’t want to change (Mary - Sherlock’s facade). Sherlock literaly has to outsmart himself in order to investigate further …. to go deeper … to explore the past:

That’s the 'second case’. Sherlock starts working on it when the 'first case’ leads him (for now) into a dead-end. And because this 'second case’ is about himself, his past, his family history there is no need to keep up John’s blog anymore. Sherlock needs his energie now elsewher. And Sherlock seems to know that this 'second case’ is a very important one. He has to solve the problem at all costs - because if he doesn’t succeed then …

That’s my head canon for more than half a year now. S4 seems to confirm a lot of my ideas therfore I’m quite curious how this story continues … if it continues of course.  :)))

@monikakrasnorada @kateis-cakeis @shadow3214 @loveteaelephants @impossibleleaf @not-a-bit-good

rb for the rest of the discussion and especially this last bit about sherlock solving himself.