Gaiman reads the entire story himself and does his usual remarkable job. If you are at all intrigued by the story premise, do yourself a favor and go to the source. Neverwhere (the book) was my very first Gaiman experience, and it got me hooked. The voice actors are superb, especially McAvoy and Cumberbatch, but I did drop one performance star for the somewhat scratchy quality of the sound effects. This really is a story that deserves a complete hearing. That's the reason for the 3 star story mark - it just doesn't stand alone for the uninitiated. But if you have never read or listened to the full book, it would be very hard to understand what's going on as the audioplay is essentially an abridgement of the story, losing a great deal of the character and plot development.

Contains over 25 minutes of additional unbroadcast material, including extended scenes, bloopers and outtakes.Īs you read through reviews for this offering, you'll see that those who already know and love the story through the full book version also enjoyed this dramatisation. Adapted for radio by the award-winning Dirk Maggs, this captivating dramatisation features a stellar cast including David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head and David Schofield. Accompanied by the mysterious Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family - all the while trying to get back to his old life in London Above. There he meets the Earl of Earl's Court, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with the Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel.

An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into the strange world of London Below. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. Beneath the streets of London there is another London.

Neverwhere bbc