Neverwhere

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This article is about the television series written by Neil Gaiman. For the novel version of this story, also by Neil Gaiman, see Neverwhere (novel). For the unrelated comic book story world by Richard Corben, see Den (comics). (Richard Corben's Neverwhere was the same fictional realm visited by Dan in the 1980s cult classic Heavy Metal.)

Neverwhere is an urban fantasy television series by Neil Gaiman. The series is set in 'London Below', a magical realm coexisting with the London familiar to all. It was devised by Neil Gaiman and Lenny Henry, and directed by Dewi Humphreys. The idea for the story came from a conversation between Gaiman and Henry about a possible television series. Henry suggested a story with tribes of homeless people in London. Gaiman (while initially reluctant to commit, as he feared that making the homeless appear "cool" would cause more young people to attempt to emulate the characters) expanded it from there.[1] Neil Gaiman later adapted the story into a novel.

Contents

[edit] The TV series

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Plot

The plot of Neverwhere centres around Richard Mayhew, an average Londoner who encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night. Despite his girlfriend's protests he decides to help her, but that unfortunately also means that he suddenly ceases to exist for regular people and becomes real only to the denizens of 'London Below', whose inhabitants are generally also invisible to the people of 'London Above'. He loses his house, his job and nearly his mind as he travels London Below in an attempt to make sense out of it all and help Door survive.

In London Below the various familiar names of London all take on a new significance: thus Knightsbridge, or rather "Nightsbridge" is a real and dangerous bridge whose darkness takes its toll in human life; The Angel, Islington is an actual angel. London Below is the world in and beneath the sewers. Its inhabitants are the homeless, but also people from other times, such as Roman legionnaires and medieval monks, as well as fiction/fantasy characters. It is like a parallel world that connects in some points with present-day reality; it could be thought of as a modern variation on "Alice in Wonderland".

[edit] Characters

Richard Mayhew - a young businessman, who discovers the world of London Below one day after helping an injured Door recover in his flat.

Door – A young woman from London Below, the daughter of a noble family who were all murdered shortly before the beginning of the story. She possesses her family’s innate ability to “open” things (and not just doors).

The Marquis de Carabas – The Marquis is a tricky bloke to say the least. He is arrogant, cunning and very sure of himself. Though very much the trickster, he is a loyal friend of Door and her family. This character seems to have been inspired by Puss in Boots, as he is very cat-like and even takes his name from the fabricated title created by Puss for his master. Even his stored portion of his life could be compared to having “nine lives.”

Mr. Croup – The talkative half of the pair of assassins, the Messrs. He is short, fat, and speaks in a formal, pompous and verbose manner. Like his partner, Vandemar, he seems to be able to simply move from one place to another very quickly despite his ungainly appearance. He is the brains of the pair and seems be the one calling the shots, and he apparently has a taste (literally) for fine china. Much of the imagery used to describe him is that of a fox.

Mr. Vandemar – Dull-witted, tall, and gangly, Vandemar is Croup’s polar opposite. He does not speak much, and when he does, his statements are often humorously blunt and direct. He is quite brutish and seems to enjoy nothing more than killing and destroying things (even practising his golf swing with live toads). The descriptive imagery likens him to a hound, and he even howls at one point when catching up with his mark.

Old Bailey – An old friend of the Marquis, he is a “bird-man” of sorts, keeping the company of pigeons on the rooftops and wearing clothing made of feathers. He became indebted to the Marquis long ago, and so is charged with keeping a portion of his life safe for him.

Hunter – A warrior of London Below; her feats are legendary. It is her lifelong obsession to slay the great Beast of London.

The Angel Islington - An actual angel dwelling in the sewers of London Below.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Transmission

Neverwhere was first broadcast on BBC Two from September 12, 1996. There are six half-hour episodes:

  1. Door
  2. Knight's Bridge
  3. Earl's Court To Islington
  4. Blackfriars
  5. Down Street
  6. As Above, So Below

[edit] Primary Cast

[edit] Visual problems

Neverwhere received some criticism for its visual appearance. One major problem lay in the original plan to shoot on video (for budgetary reasons), and then later "filmise" the footage to make it look like it had been shot on film.[2] For this reason, the programme had been lit and shot in a manner appropriate to a film-based production. However, the decision to apply the filmisation process was later reversed.

Thus, in addition to what some considered the old-fashioned appearance of un-filmised video,[2] the lighting set up with film in mind appeared garish and unsubtle on the more clinical medium. Gaiman himself commented that the loss of quality resulting from multi-generational VHS copies actually improved the appearance in this respect.[2]

[edit] DVD releases

The six episodes were released in the US to DVD as a two-disc set on September 9, 2003. Despite the DVDs often being advertised as region 1, the actual discs are, however, region zero.[3]

The BBC are releasing the series on DVD on 23 April 2007.[4]

[edit] Other adaptations and sequels

Rumours of both a feature film adaptation and a sequel to the original story have been circulating since the original release. A script has been written for a movie version and was optioned by the Jim Henson Company, but the project has been through so many script and directorial changes that it may well be designated as lost in development hell.

Neil Gaiman has said a sequel to the book is a possibility. In Neil Gaiman's short story collection Fragile Things, when commenting on his novella The Monarch of the Glen, a novella that follows up on Gaiman's earlier novel American Gods, he comments that a novella-length story in the world of Neverwhere, How The Marquis Got His Coat Back, remains half-written.

A nine-issue comic book limited series began in June 2005, written by Mike Carey (of the Vertigo series Lucifer), with art by Glenn Fabry. The comic is an adaptation of the novel, rather than the original TV series, and thus the characters do not generally resemble the cast members listed above. The series is being published by DC Comics's Vertigo imprint. The collected edition was released as a graphic novel, also published by Vertigo, in February 2007 (ISBN 1-4012-1007-4).

[edit] Translations

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Interview on the UK VHS Release of Neverwhere
  2. ^ a b c http://www.dvdbits.com/reviews.asp?id=3324
  3. ^ http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/books/neverwhere/dvd?format=hb
  4. ^ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neverwhere-Complete-Gary-Bakewell/dp/B000MGB100/ref=pd_ka_1/026-1655418-3287624?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1174347206&sr=8-1

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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