Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Neverwhat?

Saxey tells of the secret shame of being in Neverwhere II, if only for a second, with the head of an ibis painted over you. And soldier, I know. I was there.

So, what's so bad about Neverwhere? Well, that's a tricky question, son. Because, although Neverwhere is dodgy, it is dodgy in a really good way. Or, if you'd rather, it is good in a really shit way.

Good things -Peter Capaldi is in it. Peter Capaldi is in it again. Hywel Bennet is also in it. Paul Macartney is the hero. The Marquis de Carabas is "the sex". Spooky music. An Eno collaboration, and thus by definition great. And, damn it, it was an attempt to make a reasonably serious, reasonably adult fantasy series shown at a decent time. Got to respect that. This is all good.

Bad things - the central concept, that there is a spoooooky world below London where all the underground names are, like, real is one of those things that, although both clever and intriguing, makes you want to gouge your eyes out after a while. Earl's Court - it's a court! With an earl! Blackfriars - they are some friars! And they're black! High Barnet - It's a wig! Floating three hundred feet in the air! Elephant and Castle - well, you get the idea. After a while it starts to feel a bit like the Pan's People over-literal dance interpretation plague.

The special effects are often Childrens Film Foundation, which is understandable. Some of the line readings are likewise, which is less so, although often understandable. Harrison Ford, when upbraided for ad libbing on the set of Star Wars, apparently snarled at his director, "George, you can type this shit, but you sure as Hell can't say it," and somebody should probably have done the same here. Speeches that would look fine on the page can be awkward when rerendered as actual vibrations in the air.

Goths are not scary. They're not otherworldly. They're not menacing. They're just goths. This is a lesson to be learned by all peoples of the Earth, but we should probably start with Gaiman and the Wachowski Brothers.

And, perhaps most galling of all, it stars a quirky child-woman with a mysterious quality whose view of life, although seeming at first skewed and eccentric, may make us look more closely at the assumptions of our own sheltered existences.

None of which stops it from being a lot of fun, and the new Rocky Horror if I get my way. But let me say only that a child-woman with every indication of being about to be quirky was involved in the filming of these five seconds of Mirror Mask.

I need say no more.

Loving the (utterly apocryphal and self-conceived) idea that Mirror Mask is going to be Neverwhere but with buses, though. The destinations are all a lot less mysterious ("so...you wish to travel to.....outside Sainsbury's? A hard journey, my lady..."), and you have to save up "Terminal" for the finalé. But still. "Nevertherewhenyouneedoneandthenhalfanhourlaterthreeofthemallcomeatonce", anyone?

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