This single BBC disc contains the 6 half hour episodes of the 1996 series written by Neil Gaiman. His first filmed work, it tells about an ordinary young man living and working in London who gets involved with a young woman from London Below, the city below the city in which the Angel Islington isn't a tube station/pub in Islington, it's an angel called Islington.
I first heard of this series through my seminar tutor at university when she recommended I watch it as part of my written assignment about how London has been portrayed on screen due to some of its characters being literal representations of different parts of London (Angel Islington, Old Bailey) and I rented the DVD from LoveFilm. I ended up not including references to this series in my assignment in case I overran the word count but I watched it anyway.
Nobady sees things as Neil Gaiman does. He is a true seaker.
Coming across NEVERWHERE on the internet brought back memories of working on a live, one hour weekly experimental film and video show (on Public Access). It boggles the mind to think that Richard Corben was on this level 40 years ago!
This miniseries made absolutely no impression on me when a friend showed it to me a few years ago, but after hearing BBC Radio 4's highly satisfying all-star adaptation from Christmas 2013, I got a little closer to putting a finger on the certain je ne sais quoi that made this original incarnation of the property less than a success.I don't think it has anything to do with production values or the fact that the intended video-to-film transfer never took place.
You probably have to know London a bit to fully enjoy the story of Neverwhere (the series or the novel for that matter). The whole story relies on knowing a bit of the city layout, above and below :) And it's understandable that US viewers can be surprised by the low budget BBC production (unless they were familiarized with it through stuff like Dr Who which seems to be popular at the moment).
When others here say that this thing has cheap looking production values, believe them. Beyond that, I still don't see what everyone loves about Neverwhere.
Neil Gaiman is a very professional and entertaining author. His work reaches deep into your imagination ad pulls those chords that you never thought existed until you read his words.
True enough, this isn't glitzy, cellophane-shrink-wrapped Hollywood fare. Then again, neither is it all-gloss-and-no-substance Hollywood fare.
