Neverwhere

Technically this is not an adaptation, the Neverwhere tv show was the original, with the book and graphic novel coming after. Neverwhere is an ambitious urban fantasy series set in London – or more accurately London Above and London Below. London Above is the London that we know and London Below is sort of mirror image of that London, with magic, angels and supernatural beings of all kinds. Successful executive Richard Mayhew stumbles across a young woman in the street, Door, injured. He takes her in and after she leaves finds himself immersed in the world of London Below, the people of London Above are barely able to see him and even his best friend and fiancé don’t know who he is. Worst of all he has attracted the attention of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemaar who are looking for Door. There had never been a show like Neverwhere, let alone one in the 90s on British television, it is a fascinating and thrilling show and while it does look dated it is still brilliant. It’s worth pointing the fantastic cast who many have gone on to great things like Laura Fraser (Door) in Breaking Bad, Peter Capaldi (Islington) The Thick Of It, Doctor Who, Clive Russell (Mr Vandemar) Game of Thrones. Speaking of Mr Vandemar, he and his partner Mr Croup deserve particular plaudits for just how menacing they are.

Stardust

Stardust is a sensational high-fantasy film starring Charlie Cox, Clare Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer. It is packed with stars like Robert De Niro and Peter O’Toole taking on small roles, as well as cult figures like Adam Buxton and Dexter Fletcher. Another work where there is the normal world and a fantastical world, after a star is knocked out of the heavens Tristan Thorne pledges to retrieve it for the love of his life, but as it has landed in the fantastical world his journey is not simple. To Tristan’s great surprise the star is a woman, Yvaine, and he intends to present her to his love and then help her home. But for various complicated reasons they are pursued by witches, princes and more. The film is actually very different to the source material, the book has less of a narrative, and more of a collection of a number of European fairy tales that are moulded into one story. The book has a somewhat less happy ending and throughout is darker in tone.

Coraline

Speaking of dark tones…Coraline is a fantastic animated children’s film that is one of the darkest, most nightmare-inducing things in existence. The film is about a girl called Coraline (Dakota Fanning), whose family move to a new house, she is bored, has no friends in the area and gets quite cross with her mother and annoyed with her father. Coraline finds a door to an alternate world where everything is more fun and magical – everyone has time for her, there are fantastical machines and lovely things happen. There are duplicates of the people around her, in particular, her Other Mother (Terri Hatcher), seemingly identical in appearance to her mother but with buttons for eyes. Suffice to say this other world is not the wonderful place it initially appears to be and is genuinely terrifying. I have read the book, many years ago, and so am less confident in talking about how successful it is adapting the book, but regardless, it is a great film.

The Sandman

As I have just written an article on The Sandman I refer you to that article.

Good Omens

Both the book and tv show Good Omens make a great case for the human race and the wonder of being alive. The TV show is concerned with the coming apocalypse when Heaven and Hell will fight it out for ultimate power. A demon named Crowley (David Tennant) is charged with bringing the antichrist to a hospital and swapping babies so the antichrist winds up in a prominent and powerful family. But due to some misunderstandings, the antichrist is taken by a pleasant and ordinary English family. It turns out that Crowley rather likes Earth, as does his angelic friend, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), and they hatch a plan to prevent the apocalypse. Good Omens is a fantastic show and at times is exceptionally moving. It contains the greatest example of joy I have ever seen on film – that being Aziraphale dancing – and is bursting with ideas, from the prophetic witch Agnes Nutter who is unerringly accurate, and her descendant the wonderfully named Anathema Device, to the Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell. Much is focused on the actual antichrist, Adam, as his powers begin to manifest as he plays with his friends. The book is by Neil Gaiman and the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett and is even more wonderful than the show.

How To Talk To Girls at Parties

An adaptation I haven’t seen based on a short story I haven’t read but was very badly received at the time and has made little cultural impact. The book was critically very successful and received several awards.

American Gods

Realistically it would take the whole article to do justice to the scope of American Gods, but as briefly as possible it is about a coming war between the old gods and the new gods. The olds are Odin, Zeus, Baba Yaga, old religions that few, if any, actually still believe in. As their belief has waned so has their power. They will fight the new gods, the gods of media, of cars, of technology, of government power, who are as personified as the old gods. The actual plot revolves around Shadow (Ricky Whittle), an ex-con who is recruited by Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), a small-time hustler and conman (and in fact is Odin), to act as bodyguard and general assistant. Shadow is slowly brought into this peculiar world and the coming war. As well as gods there’s an unstoppable undead woman, leprechauns and all manner of mythical, mystical and magic beings. Watching the Amazon Prime tv show I was struck by just how close they often stuck to the book as I had already drawn up a list of the weirder things that would be cut from a television show.

Anansi Boys

The filming for this show has finished but we still have some time to wait for Anansi Boys on Amazon Prime. The book focuses on two brothers Charlie Nancy and Spider, sons of the trickster spider god Anansi. Charlie leads a perfectly normal life, seemingly devoid of any powers, whereas Spider is a demi-god, the death of their father brings the brothers back together. Charlie is not really aware of his divine nature, burying details of his life in his unconscious so he can get on with life. Unfortunately, Anansi had powerful enemies and with the spider-god’s death, they come looking for revenge on his sons.

Also Read: The Sandman: The Unfilmmable Graphic Novel Comes To Netflix

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The Boys

The Boys deal with the uncomfortable truth of what superheroes might actually be like, not noble protectors but selfish, careless and cruel people. Take A-Train for example, the fastest man in the world who in the first episode literally runs through someone to Superman-esque Homelander who is about as terrifying as it gets. And these are the “heroes”, not supervillains, loved by the people and celebrated with endorsements, movie deals and more. William Butcher is the self-appointed judge of these superheroes, trying to get the world to realise how dangerous and messed up they are (as well as killing them from time to time). With no superpowers of his own Butcher has to be creative in his methods and many times is not much of a hero himself.

Good Omens

Good Omens was an Amazon-BBC co-production series based on the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The show revolves around the antichrist, the apocalypse and the coming war between Heaven and Hell but after an administrative error by some satanic nuns the antichrist is misplaced and brought up in a quiet English village. A demon and an angel, who actually quite like Earth and don’t fancy this apocalypse business decide to stop it by raising a morally neutral antichrist but realise they have been watching the wrong child. It is a phenomenal show about friendship, love and the virtuous and vile aspects of humanity, for example, Crowley, the demon, has been tasked on making awful things happen on Earth. But he doesn’t do that, instead simply takes credit for the terrible things humans do without any outside interference. The pair of Crowley (David Tenant) and the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) is a constant joy before we even get into the witch Agnes Nutter, her descendent Anathema Device, and of course, God, voiced by triple Oscar winner Frances McDormand.

Catastrophe

Catastrophe is a sitcom written by and starring Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney (whilst they are not playing themselves their characters are called Sharon and Rob). Their characters have a brief relationship which results in Sharon becoming pregnant and they decide to get married and raise the child together. The show is hilarious and has an angry edge lacking in most sitcoms, it shows the characters at their worst as well as their moments of kindness and love. They have arguments, unpleasant, fierce arguments where nasty things are said and difficult truths shared, they are shown making mistakes, being selfish, of not being their best. And again, it is hilarious.

The Vast of Night

The Vast of Night is a very clever sci-fi film from a couple of years ago set in 1950s small-town America. A radio producer, Everett, picks up what might be a signal from aliens and he and a telephone operator, Fay try to investigate what’s going on. The film is eerie and unsettling without a great deal of big events happening – this is not Independence Day. The cinematography is amazing and it’s a joy to simply watch fantastic shot after fantastic shot, with painstaking attention to detail to make it appear the 1950s and some spectacular tracking shots that follow the action.

The Big Sick

The Big Sick is based on the real-life relationship of Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon (who wrote the film together and Nanjiani stars in the film, the main characters are called Kumail and Emily) detailing the difficulties of this relationship when Kumail’s family strongly disapprove of him dating someone not of his ethnicity. This problem is brought into sharp focus when the character based on Emily becomes extremely ill, going into a coma, and soon her parents come to help take care of her. With their relationship in a very odd place Kumail is at a loss as to how he should be with Emily’s parents, leading to some fascinating interactions. It’s a touching and very funny film with a great cast but it was a delight to see Emily’s parents played by the legendary Holly Hunter and Ray Romano (having never liked his sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond he is great in this).

Also Read: Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The New Game of Thrones?

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Spoiler Warning for The Men Who Stare At Goats, The Shape of Water, Jojo Rabbit and Good Omens

You Can Dance…Just Someone Told You Not To

These were the brilliant words of Jeff Bridges’ character Bill Django in The Men Who Stare At Goats, an uneven film that contains one of my favourite scenes of all-time. Django is an army officer who after the horrors of the Vietnam War searches for a new path for the US Army and essentially becomes a hippy. He recruits soldiers for a special unit who will learn to become “Jedi Knights” and the very first thing he asks this unit to do is dance. When one soldier, Lyn Cassady, insists he doesn’t like dancing, Django disagrees. A flashback to the soldier’s youth shows him happily dancing to The Beatles as a child until his father yells at him for dancing. Cassady starts dancing and this indeed frees him and brings him happiness. In 45 seconds this film summed up a huge amount of the unhappiness in the world – someone told you that you should feel bad about something that makes you happy.

He Sees Me For What I Am, As I Am

One of the most surprising Best Picture Oscar-winning films ever is The Shape Of Water. This is not because it is not worthy, it is, but because it’s not the sort of film that normally wins Oscars. It is hard to overstate the importance of dancing in this film. Elisa is a janitor in a secret government facility, she is also mute, unable to speak due to a neck injury. She has a deep love of music, films and dancing and after they arrive at the secret facility a mysterious creature, listed in the credits as Amphibian Man, who also cannot speak. As neither can speak they communicate through other means – sign language and, well, dancing. There is a fantasy sequence in the film where they dance in a very Golden Era Hollywood musical performance, but for me, the more telling moments are the simpler examples of dancing. Dancing brings small moments of joy to unhappy people – Elisa, her neighbour Giles, and Amphibian Man. It is a method of communication that transcends the divide that exists between Elisa and Amphibian Man as well as showing it’s something all people – whether human or an amphibian man enjoy.

Dancing’s For People Who Are Free

Jojo Rabbit has a lot to say about dancing. Jojo is a young boy in Nazi Germany with something of an obsession with Hitler, indeed his imaginary friend is Hitler. It becomes apparent quickly that Jojo isn’t really a Nazi but drawn to the most famous person in the country. Nevertheless when he finds out that his mother is hiding Elsa, a Jewish girl a few years older than him, he is in a difficult position. Jojo’s instincts are to turn Elsa in, but then his mother will be in a lot of trouble. Jojo’s mother, Rosie, does not fit in in Nazi Germany. She is very much a free spirit and opposed to fascism and equates dancing to joy and love and freedom whereas Jojo has the narrow view that “dancing is for people who don’t have a job”. Again whilst living in Nazi Germany towards the end of the war (while it means hopefully things will change for the better, it also means soldiers fighting in your town) Rosie can find joy in something like dancing. Even more heartbreaking is Elsa’s answer to the question as to what she will do when she’s free – dance. Which is exactly what she does.

Angels Don’t Dance. It’s one of their defining characteristics

Perhaps the best moment of dancing in recent years is not from film at all but television. The tv show Good Omens is about the upcoming apocalypse…well what it’s really about is the wonder of being human – but the plot is about the apocalypse.  An angel, Aziraphale and a demon, Crowley, decide to work together to stop the apocalypse. These two have been Heaven and Hell’s agents on Earth for millennia and have grown quite attached to Earth and the people there (and against all odds, each other). Also, both have departed from the traditional views of their celestial brethren and this is shown in no better way than the fact that Aziraphale dances. The narrator, who is God, discusses the classic theological question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but starts by saying, well angels don’t dance, it is in fact, a defining characteristic. Aziraphale is the exception- defying his fellow angels, Heaven and God, just so he can dance. If you want to see the greatest portrayal of joy in the history of film and television watch Michael Sheen dancing in Good Omens.

Also Read: Did High-End TV Replace The Mid-Budget Indie Film?

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