Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue talk Sherlock

[demon_faith]

I went to see Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue talk in Wrexham tonight about "Sherlock".

Here are some comments I scribbled down that I thought would be relevant to our interests:

Comments

[madrona_8]

First, thanks for writing this up...I too would love to know more about the production ( that's my background)

Also, Sherlocking is looking for someone who saw the talk. Don't know if you saw that on twitter:http://twitter.com/sherlocking

[demon_faith]

I'll try to get something together over the weekend.

Ooh, I hadn't seen that. I'll drop them a tweet.

I apologize in advance for the length of this comment.

[stilettov]

Sorry- I have yet to weigh in on the Sherlock mental condition discussion, so I apologize in advance for my rambling

[demon_faith]

Ooh, long comment is LONG! ;)

I don't think Steven Moffat thinks Sherlock is a psychopath. Though, without belittling his work as a writer, I don't think he's writing him true to any psychiatric disorder.

What he's writing is the book canon. The whole psychopath/sociopath dialogue made for a good joke, but I honestly don't think he thought much beyond that.

My personal opinion is that Sherlock shows sociopathic tendencies and is probably on the autistic spectrum.

Long comment is going to be even more long...sorry.

[stilettov]

I think you're probably right. A lot of people have been mentioning Asperber's (which I think is the branch of autism you're referring to) which is an interesting idea, because it means that as a child, Sherlock would've had to force himself to learn facial expressions- which is a good basis for an obsession with deductive reasoning. It can be a very chaotic disorder, like any form of autism, though it appears to be the highest functioning

[demon_faith]

I can see your point with bipolar affective disorder. Though it seems that his highs and lows correspond tightly with his level of case activity, it could be that he is more case-seeking during a manic phase and that, during a down phase, he is more case-averse - tbh, we haven't seen enough of his interaction with Lestrade to know whether his cases govern his mood or his mood govern his cases.

The substance misuse is a valid point and I would personally like Sherlock to delve more deeply into it, but Moffat said last night that they were toning it down for the kids. *re*

(As an aside, it's interesting that you ended up with three distinct diagnoses, as it's perfectly possible to have two and three stem from your bipolar affective and not necessarily be distinct)

[demon_faith]

As I said above, I honestly don't think Moffat cares. I think it was a joke in the dialogue and he's writing him to book characterisation rather than a psychological type.

I did like that quote. The Moff is very quotable!

[sophiaiswisdom]

Thanks!

[demon_faith]

Croeso! ;)

[neadods]

Here via the newsletter - thank you for writing this up!