Eyes closed in the London below...

Today I listened part 6/6 of Neil's Neverwhere radio play on BBC4. And I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, actually. The episodes were nice and crunchy half-hour bits (well, except the first episode, which is 1 hour), just perfect for lunch-hour soundtrack in the office. The story was streamlined very well and most of the good stuff from the book had made it to the play. I also liked the medium. It's been awhile when I last listened an audiobook... and it has been years, if not DECADES when I last listened a proper, honest-to-goodness-traditional radio play.

Of course it helps we're talking about Neil Gaiman's story... (you could say that when the genre of speculative fiction is concerned, Neil's name is pretty much a synonym for quality) but the quality here goes beyond the story. Sound effects are good and the cast is superb. James McAvoy does a great job as Richard (although he tends to chuckle quite a bit... there's amazed chuckle, relieved chuckle, panicked chuckle, incredulous chuckle, drunken chuckle and victorious chuckle, just to name a few), Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Anthony Head and David Schofield do perfectly solid performances as the Lady Door, Marquis De Carabas, Hunter, Croup and Vandemar... Christopher Lee is spot-on as Earl of Earl's Court, Neil does a couple nice cameos... and Benedict Cumberbatch is bloody inhuman as Islington.

There's also the nostalgic aspect. I grew up listening radio plays and everything from the imaginative use of sound effects to the slightly awkward "Oh my god! The huge pink monster with claws and a banjo on his knee spotted us!"-lines (It's a frigging RADIO, you have to describe your surrounding in some way, right?) feel familiar and good. I'm just wondering how the kids of today will experience it? Most likely they just wonder what's wrong with this video-stream...

All in all, the whole act of listening a radio play takes me back down the memory lane, and when you have a story-teller such as Neil as your tour guide, it's a trip well worth taking.

Cheerio.