The Speckled Band

The Speckled Band is a 1910 play in three acts by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, based on his own 1892 short story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band". Background In 1909, Conan Doyle had leased the Adelphi Theatre at his own expense for a production of a boxing drama entitled The House of Temperley which was an adaptation of his novel Rodney Stone. While the play was initially a success, the death of King Edward VII caused West End theatres to close for a month in mourning The closing spelled the demise of the play. To recoup his loses and do something with an empty theatre he had leased, Conan Doyle decided to stage a new play. Keeping in mind that William Gillette had achieved great success with his play Sherlock Holmes, which was based on an earlier Conan Doyle script, Conan Doyle wrote his own Sherlock Holmes play in a week. Conan Doyle made some alterations to the names of his characters, with Roylott becoming Rylott, and Julia Stoner becoming Violet Stoner. Casting