one step closer to neil gaiman, everywhere: neverwhere

have you heard? because i hadn’t heard. in fact, ever since i (kind of) left twitter, i haven’t heard much of anything. okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much. anyway, the news. the NEWS is that, over the course of the last week, BBC Radio 4 has produced and released a radio play of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.*

“Neverwhere” cast

so i‘ve never read Neverwhere. but i‘ve read Neil Gaiman in my time, and i love me some Neil Gaiman. in fact, i‘ve been unofficially** re-reading Fragile Things for the past few weeks. and i‘m in the middle of a personal reading challenge to work my way through two, long-running comic book/graphic novel series – one of which is the Sandman series (the other is Fables). also this. i can’t wait for this.

lucky for me (actually, lucky for us all), i have this Neverwhere radio drama to tide me over. (side note: why is the BBC so awesome? now, i‘ve heard that the BBC isn’t all that awesome, but from where i‘m standing, the BBC looks like a beautiful, public-funded spot of very green grass). besides the obvious (um, Neil Gaiman. hello?), there are already 10 very good reasons why you should listen to the Neverwhere radio play. and here are a few more:

1. although you could probably find the audio in other places, the series will be on the BBC Radio 4 website for only three (three?!) more days.

2. Benedict Cumberbatch. with all the stuff that cumberbatch has been in lately, i‘d be tempted to say that he’s overexposed. except that he’s benedict cumberbatch. who can never be overexposed. never.

3. the rest of the cast. which includes sophie okonedo, james mcavoy, and christopher lee.

behold!, the first installment:

 

Postscript: one of my favorite new (to-me) websites, openculture, has compiled a fantastic list of free Neil Gaiman stories. check it out and yea shall not be disappointed.

* if you’ve heard already, you could just pretend you haven’t. i don’t have much. announcing old news on the news-saturated internet is the highlight of my week. (no, not really. but, kind of, yeah)

** “unofficially” just means that i get to read one short story every four days without feeling bad about myself.

Related articles

• Listen to Benedict Cumberbatch sing in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (io9.com)
• Q&A: Neil Gaiman on the Star-Studded BBC Audioplay of Neverwhere (wired.com)
• Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: Why the best thing that’s on this weekend is on the radio (telegraph.co.uk)