Neverwhere (BBC)

Archive transfer - originally posted September 8th 2005 (contains spoilers)

When this six-part series first went out on BBC2 in 1996, it was hailed as the best fantasy drama the Beeb had produced for a long while (mainly because it might be argued it was the only fantasy drama it had produced in a long while!).
It was also seen by some as a way of filling the gap left by Doctor Who and shutting up the fans who demanded genre TV from their licence fee.
Based on a book by Neil Gaiman (a man continually in need of a haircut), Neverwhere just doesn't work for me. It was presented as an adult dramatisation of a book written for adults in mind, but the end result is a rather limp series that has all the hallmarks of what Doctor Who might have become if it had lasted until the late 90s.
There's nothing lasting about the series. The production values are dated, the acting is, in parts, abysmal, and the plot as adapted for the screen simply does not warrant three hours of TV. I haven't read the book, and I assume there was more in it than what we get on screen, but what we did get could easily have fitted into four half hour slots - your average Doctor Who serial.
It's not all bad. The scenes in the floating market on HMS Belfast are wonderful, and the series as a whole is well directed by Dewi Humphries. There's some great set design from James Dillon (especially the Angel Islington's lair) and Brian Eno's music, although devoid of passion or power, kind of fits well with the lazy pace of the story.
My favourite aspects of the TV adaptation are the cameo performances of the wonderfully imagined undergrounders. I love Trevor Peacock's Old Bailey and Tanya Moodie's Hunter, and there are some juicy performances from Hywel Bennett as Mr Croup, Tamsin Greig as Velvet Lamia, Timothy Bateson as Halvard, and Paterson Joseph as the sublime Marquis de Carabas. In fact, if there's anyone who deserves particular praise it's Joseph, who gives the Marquis a wonderful presence and character pretty much missing elsewhere.
That's what's wrong, you see. The story and setting are both rich tapestries, almost pretentiously so. But without strong performances to bring these larger than life characters into three dimensions - so that you care when Hunter dies, or you care when the Marquis dies, or you care when Richard has his finger broken - you're not making the essential link between screen and viewer. You start watching it as spectacle rather than as engrossing entertainment.
Some of the blandest performances come from Laura Fraser as Door, Gary Bakewell as Richard Mayhew and Peter Capaldi as the Angel Islington - arguably three of the most centrally important characters. Bakewell tries, but fails to provoke any sympathy in his wimpy Scot; Fraser fails magnificently in giving Door any kind of believable emotions; and Capaldi's evil villain simply does not convince, although that's less his fault and more the casting directors'.
Neverwhere would have been much more successful if more attention was paid to characterisation and tighter plotting. It fails almost every time to provide a gripping, or even vaguely interesting, cliff-hanger, and as rich and enjoyable as the set and costume design is, nothing can hide the fact that from beginning to end, Neverwhere is a largely uninvolving series.
Only the death of Hunter, one of my favourite characters, managed to engage me in the way human drama should. Other than that, I cared little about whether Richard and Door got it together, I was less than bothered whether the Angel succeeded in his evil plot or not, and despite Joseph's creditable performance, I wasn't all that fussed that he was bumped off half way through the story (and just as unfussed by his miraculous return).
Neverwhere was the BBC trying to do something half-heartedly. It could have been great, landmark. It could have been the Gormenghast of the 1990s, but in the end it was just another foil-wrapped genre runaround, consigned to the swampy archives of the BBC, remembered perhaps as what Doctor Who's Paradise Towers could have been like if the production team stuck to the writer's original ideas... but that's another story!

Neverwhere, originally transmitted September 12th - October 17th 1996
Written by Neil Gaiman, devised by Neil Gaiman and Lenny Henry; directed by Dewi Humphreys