Information AboutMycroft Holmes |
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Mycroft Holmes is a Fictional Character in the stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle . He is the older brother (by seven years) of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes . PROFILE Possessing deductive powers exceeding even those of his younger brother, Mycroft is nonetheless incapable of performing detective work similar to that of Sherlock since he is unwilling to put in the physical effort necessary to bring cases to their conclusions. While Conan Doyle's stories leave unclear what Mycroft Holmes' exact position is in the British government, Sherlock Holmes says that "Occasionally he ''is'' the British government {Link without Title} the most indispensable man in the country." He apparently serves as a sort of human computer: Mycroft has appeared or been mentioned in four stories by Doyle: " The Greek Interpreter ", " The Final Problem ", " The Empty House " and " The Bruce-Partington Plans ". While he does occasionally exert himself in these stories on the behalf of his brother, he on the whole remains a sedentary problem-solver, providing solutions based on seemingly no evidence and trusting Sherlock to handle any of the practical details. In fact, Mycroft's own lack of practicality is a severe handicap despite his deductive talents: in "The Greek Interpreter", his blundering approach to the case nearly costs the client his life. Mycroft resembles Sherlock, but is usually portrayed as being much heavier than his brother. Mycroft spends most of his time at The Diogenes Club , which he co-founded. A resemblance has been noted between Mycroft Holmes and another brilliant but sedentary fictional detective, Nero Wolfe ; it has been suggested, with varying degrees of seriousness, that they may have been related. The best-known form of this hypothesis — popularized by William S. Baring-Gould , who wrote "biographies" of both Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe — holds that Wolfe is the offspring of Sherlock and Irene Adler . Another parallel can be observed in the TV series '' Monk '' in the connection between fictional Obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk and his even more intelligent, though even more neurotic and Agoraphobic , brother Ambrose . In a similar vein, the television show '' Numb3rs '' features a mathematician who frequently aids his FBI agent brother. Mycroft was parodied in the '' Solar Pons '' series with a character named Bancroft Stoneham Pons, who was also seven years older than the leading protagonist. REFERENCES IN POPULAR CULTURE Mycroft Holmes has been portrayed many times in Film , Television , and Radio adaptations of the Holmes stories. In the 1950s radio series starring John Gielgud as Sherlock Holmes, Gielgud's own brother, Val Gielgud , played the part. In the Billy Wilder -directed film '' The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes '' (1970), which starred Robert Stephens as Sherlock, Mycroft was played by Christopher Lee (who also played Sherlock Holmes in other productions before and since). Unlike nearly all representations of Mycroft, Lee's was whippet-thin. Charles Gray assumed the character in both the 1976 film '' The Seven-Per-Cent Solution '' and four episodes of Granada Television 's '' The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes '' series in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The character has been used many times in works that are not adaptations of Holmes stories:
Mycroft is also sometimes referred to less directly in popular culture:
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