In new show Young Sherlock, the famous detective is a Gen Z heart-throb

NEW YORK – When American actor William Gillette was bringing Sherlock Holmes, a play loosely based on the character created by Arthur Conan Doyle, to Broadway in November 1899, he wired a cable to the English writer and asked permission to take creative liberties.

“You may marry him, murder him or do anything you like to him,” Conan Doyle replied – a blessing that Gillette used to add a love interest, furnish Holmes with a pipe and give him a snappy line of original dialogue that would become his catchphrase: “Elementary, my dear Watson.”