Category Archives: Fiction

Adam Adamant: an Edwardian Gentleman-Adventurer in Swinging ’60s London

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 2nd January 2018 Popular enough in its day but almost forgotten over the past four decades, the mystery/adventure TV series Adam Adamant Lives! was intended as the BBC’s answer to The Avengers.  Both series featured … Continue reading

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Cane Vs. Sword (Sherlock Holmes, 2009)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 5th May 2018 The climactic fight between Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr. and Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), in which Holmes appropriately wields a cane against Blackwood’s devilish blade: For details on this … Continue reading

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“Ju-Jitsu to the Rescue” (1913)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Friday, 30th November 2018 Here’s a newly-discovered Bioscope playbill for the short silent film Ju-Jitsu to the Rescue, which starred former Bartitsu Club instructor Yukio Tani and which played widely throughout England during late 1912-early 1913. … Continue reading

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“I Look Forward to the Debate, Sir!” – a Bartitsuesque Fight Scene from “Q.E.D.” (1982)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Tuesday, 19th January 2016 Readers of a certain age may fondly recall the short-lived TV series Q.E.D. (also titled The Mastermind), which screened during the early 1980s. The show featured Sam Waterston as the eccentric former Ivy … Continue reading

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“The Colonial Applicant ‘Taps the Mat’” (1917)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 16th February 2019 A spectacular jiujitsu moment from the popular 1917 comedy play Wanted, A Husband, in which the protagonist, a young writer named Mabel, mischievously advertises for a husband to spark ideas … Continue reading

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“It was jiu-jitsu!” (1906)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 2nd January 2012 I drew a deep breath as I mastered the contents of this momentous document. Then, just as I was about to replace it in the ingenious receptacle contrived for … Continue reading

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The Bartitsu Club as Imagined in “Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst’s Amazons” (2015)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Monday, 6th November 2017 In the 2015 graphic novel Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst’s Amazons, the Bartitsu School of Arms serves as the gymnasium and headquarters of a secret society of female bodyguards who protect the … Continue reading

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John Steed’s Umbrella-Fu

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 2nd September 2017 Secret agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) wields a mean brolly in this training sequence from The Avengers (1998). Choreographed by the great English fight director William Hobbs, Steed’s impeccable umbrella-fu was … Continue reading

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“Chucker-Out of the Unwanted: Muscular Maude” (1917)

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on Saturday, 20th October 2018 Actress Doris Lytton puts up her dukes as Maude Bray, a supporting character in the 1917 theatrical farce Wanted: a Husband.  Hilarity ensues when one of Maude’s friends advertises for … Continue reading

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Brutal Cane Fighting in Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

Originally published on the Bartitsu.org site on July 10th, 2018

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