Scotland Yard - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

Scotland Yard has become internationally famous as a symbol of policing, and detectives from Scotland Yard feature in many works of crime fiction. They were frequent allies, and sometimes antagonists, of Sherlock Holmes in Arthur Conan Doyle's famous stories (for instance, Inspector Lestrade). It is also referred to in Around the World in Eighty Days.

Many novelists have adopted fictional Scotland Yard detectives as the heroes or heroines of their stories. John Creasey's stories featuring George Gideon are amongst the earliest police procedurals. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, created by P. D. James, and Inspector Richard Jury, created by Martha Grimes are notable recent examples. A somewhat more improbable example is Baroness Orczy's aristocratic female Scotland Yard detective Molly Robertson-Kirk, known as Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. Agatha Christie's numerous mystery novels often referenced Scotland Yard, most notably in her Hercule Poirot series.

During the 1930s, there was a short-lived pulp magazine called variously Scotland Yard, Scotland Yard Detective Stories or Scotland Yard International Detective, which, despite the name, concentrated more on lurid crime stories set in the United States than anything to do with the Metropolitan Police.

Leslie Charteris features Detective Inspector (later Detective Chief Inspector) Claud Eustace Teal of Scotland Yard in several of his Saint novels, a character who reappeared in various dramatic incarnations of the series, notably on television by Ivor Dean. In the books Teal is presented somewhat more sympathetically than in many of the adaptations: in the 1960s television series he is depicted as borderline incompetent, always being bested by Simon Templar.

Scotland Yard was the name of a series of cinema featurettes made between 1953 and 1961. Introduced by Edgar Lustgarten, each episode featured a dramatised reconstruction of a "true crime" story. Filmed at Merton Park Studios, many of the episodes featured Russell Napier as Inspector Duggan. The series was succeeded by The Scales of Justice, which dealt with a similar theme. In the comedy series Batman, the caped crusaders in England meet members of "Ireland Yard"; clearly a spoof of Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard is briefly mentioned in the opening of the second act of the Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde in the song entitled "Murder, Murder", about the catching of a murderer.

In the James Bond novels and short stories by Ian Fleming and others, Assistant Commissioner Sir Ronald Vallance is a recurring fictional character who works for Scotland Yard. Gala Brand, who works for Ronnie Vallance at Scotland Yard, is featured in the 1955 novel Moonraker. Scotland Yard was also briefly mentioned in the 1965 The Beatles movie Help!. When Ringo requires protection, he and his fellow Beatles head to Scotland Yard for assistance.

Fabian of the Yard was a television series filmed and transmitted by the BBC between 1954 and 1956, based upon the career of the by then retired Detective Inspector Robert Fabian. It focused on the subject of forensic science, which at the time was in its infancy. Fabian usually appeared in a cameo shot towards the end of each episode.

A long running gag to end skits in Monty Python's Flying Circus is a policeman in a tan raincoat and a fedora bursting in, and announcing himself as so-and-so "of the Yard".

A sketch in the BBC comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News showed Scotland Yard's rotating sign being hand-cranked by the Commissioner.

In the 2010 BBC television drama Sherlock, many of the characters such as Detective Inspector Lestrade, Detective Inspector Dimmock, Sergeants Donovan and Anderson, work for Scotland Yard.