Sherlock’s executive producer Steven Moffat has promised fans that the climax to the glossy detective drama’s third series will leave them “just as frustrated as ever they were.”

Speaking at the Bafta Craft awards held last weekend, the writer admitted that he and co-writer Mark Gatiss had already penned an ingenious conclusion to the eagerly-awaited third season of the show.

He said: “We’ve had our meeting, we’ve decided what we’re doing and how we’re going to approach it, and I think we’ve got a climax to the next series that will have people just as frustrated as they ever were.”

Moffat also said that Sherlock’s faux-demise at the end of series two would likely go down as one of the most cunning in history when its method is revealed to fans. “We know what we’re doing. If Sherlock Holmes is going to fake his own death, it better be the best faked death of all time. I think it’s pretty good,” he said.

And after celebrating winning the Bafta Craft award for Best Writer, Moffat explained the appeal of Sherlock’s lead actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

“There’s something very enjoyable about watching them together because they are almost diametric opposites in styles of acting,” he said. 

“Benedict is this sort of beautiful, exotic creature. He’s never going to play an ordinary man, ‘cause he couldn’t. That’s not what he’s like, but he will tell the stories of great men.

“Whereas I think Martin Freeman does the exact opposite: he makes ordinary people fascinating. He finds the poetry in just being ordinary, and that’s an extraordinary, exquisite gift. He can tell the story of our lives and make it fascinating.”

Sherlock star and co-writer Mark Gatiss has revealed Dr Watson may not be pleased to see Sherlock, when he returns from the dead in the new series.

The last cliff-hanger episode of the hit TV show saw Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and nemesis Moriarty plunge to their apparent death from the roof of St Bart’s hospital in London.

Gatiss revealed that, as in Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story The Adventure Of The Empty House, Sherlock will surprise his friend Watson, played by Martin Freeman, when he reveals he faked his death. And Watson won’t be quite as understanding as he was in the original story.

Gatiss said: “There’s certain things about The Adventure Of The Empty House which feel set in stone because that’s how Sherlock comes back, but at the same time we feel free to invent and to introduce new stuff to it.

“I always found it a little unlikely that Dr Watson’s only reaction was to faint for instance - as supposed to possibly a stream of terrible swear words.”