Neverwhere

I watched Neverwhere when it was first aired on the BBC in 1996 and really enjoyed it, I was rather disappointed when a second series didn't materialise. When I spotted the series for sale on DVD I had to buy it.

Being made for television at a time when good quality special effects were too expensive some scenes don't look as good as they might now, thankfully the creators seem to have realised this and kept the effects scenes to a minimum instead relying on underground locations to give the series its atmosphere.

Richard Mayhew is an ordinary London office worker who's life is changed when he stops to help an apparently homeless woman. He soon learns that she is Lady Door, a resident of London Below, a strange shadow world who's inhabitants pass barely noticed amongst the people of London Above. After helping Door Richard finds himself trapped in this world; his friends and even his fiancé barely notice him and when he confronts them directly they have no memory of who he was. With nowhere else to go he heads into the sewers of London Below trying to find Door again.

Richard isn't the only person seeking Door, she is also being sought by Messrs Croup and Vandemaar, two sinister assassins who have already killed her family and appear to want to do the same to Door. There are several other interesting characters, some who help Richard and Door, some who hinder them and others who are not what they appear to be.

The story uses the various parts London to give names to characters in a delightfully literal way, Hammersmith is a blacksmith wielding a hammer, The Angel Islington is literally an Angel called Islington and Earl's Court is where the Earl holds court. The actors did a good job, I particularly liked Laura Fraser's portrayal of Door and Hywel Bennett and Clive Russell as the two assassins.

I'd certainly recommend this short series to anybody wanting to see something a little different and likes fantasy drama.

This series will both surprise and delight you...the quality isn't the greatest, like that of a British soap opera, but you'll be hooked after the first 10 minutes. The writing is great, the characters are wonderfully written, each one with it's own personality, back round, life - you tend to feel you know them by the end, and an emotional connection is unavoidable. Perfect acting by ALL involved. Highly recommended.

After being treated to the first episode of this gritty tale of another world I was left desperate for more! I am quite surprised that this passed me by in the first instance. What on earth was I doing in 1996 when this was being shown?

Neverwhere begins with the introduction of its characters in a less than conventional way. It almost puts you off by its quirky and totally off the rails introduction. Once you get over this and the low budget nature of the program you find that the storyline is quite appealing. There are many familiar faces to discover throughout each episode.

This 6 episode adventure would appeal to fans of Dr Who and general low budget science fiction. This is never going to be mainstream programming and thats where its appeal lies. Give the first 10 minutes of episode one a try, its a pretty good indicator of the general story itself, and it got me hooked pretty quickly.

8/10 LEWIS CAROL EAT YOUR HEART OUT!

Books are usually better than their screenings. This is somehow logical, because the adaptation changes the source material to accommodate it to another and completely different medium, whose explicitness could never be compared with the infinite possibilities of crossing the imagination of the author with the imagination of the reader. But it seems that even when things are going in the opposite direction, the books still win.

"Neverwhere" is a British mini-series that Neil Gaiman wrote directly for TV, and then subsequently turned its scenario into a novel, which changed from release to release until it became one of my favorite books, which series on which it is based exceeds in every respect. Although it's BBC, the series is low-budget or at least looks cheap. Also, there are only six half-hour episodes, and the potential here is quite enough for at least ten times more, which would allow a more detailed story and better character development. But that does not mean it's bad. On the contrary, I liked it, because it very convincingly fits quite original fantasy world into our reality. The main problem is that the actors can not play, the director cannot direct, and studio and filming locations cannot look as good as I can imagine when I read a book.

Any attempt to give you a brief idea about its plot finished as a spoiler, so I'm giving up on that intention. The mere fact that it's written by Neil Gaiman should be reason enough for you to take a look.

9/10 for author's imagination 5/10 for the technical realization

I was blown away back in 96 when I first watched this TV series. Not only was the story-line way out there compared with most of the rest of the TV output at the time, but also the casting and acting were both superb. I was already a fan of Peter Capaldi, which was one of the reasons I tuned in at the beginning, but I was soon swept up in the whole story and found it one of those strange stories that is completely believable although obviously fantastical. I have always been sorry that it hasn't been repeated on terrestrial TV and was thrilled last summer to find the book freely available. Reading this I found that many of the image from the original broadcast were firmly fixed in my mind and I have been searching websites for information about a DVD. To my amazement the BBC website denies all knowledge of the series at all! What's that all about? I have finally found a supplier in Australia for the DVD - but that's not much use is it? Has anyone else also watched the brilliant Gaiman recent work Mirrormask?