Rafe Spall plays a Sherlock Holmes who cannot remember his name
Rafe Spall's Sherlock Holmes does not know he is Sherlock Holmes.
Spall leads the six-part drama The Death of Sherlock Holmes, and spoke to Deadline at MIPCOM Cannes, a large international TV market where channels and distributors buy and sell shows, in an interview published on October 16, 2026.
The story starts with an Englishman found barely alive in an icy mountain stream in the Swiss Alps. He is pulled out by Alma, played by Deleila Piasko, and her young son Franz. He has no memory. He has flashes of a previous life in England. Slowly, his powers of deduction return.
Then the village doctor is found murdered. The villagers turn on the boy. The stranger becomes his only hope.
The series fills a famous gap in Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Holmes apparently died at Reichenbach Falls in 1891. He reappeared three years later in The Adventure of the Empty House. This drama is set in that missing time.
Spall told Deadline his character "has no idea who he is and gets flashes of brilliant deduction" that pull him toward understanding what kind of person he is, and eventually perhaps realising he is the most famous detective in the world.
He said the amnesia gave him a clean slate. It freed him from direct comparison with earlier Holmes actors. He named Benedict Cumberbatch, Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone and Robert Downey Jr. among those who played the role before him.
For viewers, this means a familiar detective arriving as a stranger. No deerstalker entrance. Just fragments, then logic.
Behind the camera, the show is a co-production, meaning it is jointly made and funded by several broadcasters and companies. The partners are Sky, SRF in Switzerland, Germany's ARD Degeto, and Bell Media-owned Sphere Abacus, according to Deadline. The regional film bodies FFF Bayern in Germany and IDM Film Commission in Italy are also supporting the production.
Sphere Abacus lists the run as 6 x one-hour episodes, with 2026 as the year of production. Its listing names the broadcasters as Sky Switzerland, Sky UK, SRF and ARD Degeto. Deadline reported the series will broadcast on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland and on Sky in Switzerland and Germany.
Sphere Abacus brought Spall to Cannes as one of its big market launches for MIPCOM, which Deadline's preview had flagged among its scripted titles to watch. Spall and Piasko attended a photocall for the show on October 14, 2026 in Cannes, according to Getty Images. Variety names Claudia Bluemhuber as a creator of the series.
Spall has two other high-profile TV roles in motion. He stars in the Channel 4 drama Number 10, which ITV Studios has been shopping to buyers. In it he plays a British prime minister, and he said he met a prime minister during research. He will also play Arthur Weasley in HBO's upcoming TV series Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. His father, Timothy Spall, appeared in the Harry Potter film series.
