The Mystery of the Yellow Room

"Yes, it’s got another great detective. He’s young, said to be only 18—which is hard to reconcile with the story—and is called Joseph Rouletabille. He is a brilliant young journalist. It’s by an author called Gaston Leroux who today is better known for The Phantom of the Opera , which he also wrote. But, in its day, The Mystery of the Yellow Room was a very, very famous locked room mystery. Rouletabille makes all these enigmatic remarks as many great detectives, particularly in the past, used to do. That’s part of the appeal. There’s a lot of drama and atmosphere surrounding what actually went on in the yellow room. There’s an enigmatic professor who’s involved and a lot of classic tropes. The Mystery of the Yellow Room was highly influential. It was greatly admired by some of the great golden age writers. It was hugely successful and astonishingly—to me, at least—it’s actually been transformed into an animated movie with Lego characters, which you can watch on YouTube. It’s really quite stunning to watch this classic golden age mystery in Lego. It’s very, very funny and quite unique, so special kudos to whoever did that."