AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

Neil Gaiman's saga had a lot to live up to. In and out of the TV production schedules for most of the nineties, various rumours and plot hints had raised anticipation. Gaiman had already revolutionised comicbooks with the literate, award-showered Sandman, could he pull off the same trick with television? At a time when the US was dominating the genre landscape and looked likely to continue, Neverwhere was the great white hope of British telefantasy. A genuinely adult fantasy programme, something that would pull the UK SF world screaming out of its anorak. Forget all that nostalgia for the golden age that never was. Stand aside Star Trek and all its imported brood. We Brits were going to prove that nothing mattered except decent scripts and good acting. Well that was the idea but sadly it was not to be. In spite of good will from the makers and the fans, Neverwhere seemed to have missed the boat somewhere.

Gaiman's writing overflowed with good ideas. The Floating Market where anything and anybody can be bought and sold, bustling with nervous energy. Seductive Velvets preying on the unwary, monstrous yet empty, poignant outsiders. Two time and space travelling assassins. An angel so elevated above humanity he cannot understand morality anymore, a truly alien presence. People becoming invisible simply by being exposed to the true nature of the world. A host of dangerous locations, an army of characters, each one bringing a tangible sense of their own history and agenda. The script offered us an embarrassment of riches but strange as it may seem for a fantasy show, ultimately it was too fertile for its own good. In the first two episodes far too many conversations were filled with references to London Below's unknown history or to objects whose true nature was not explained. While both these elements are important in good storytelling, too many squeezed into half-hour episodes made the series confusing for the casual viewer. More successful was the eccentric dialogue, full of droll humour. Sequences where people displayed odd knowledge or casually performed acts of magic worked charmingly. Undoubtedly the most chilling scene takes place during Richard's ordeal at Blackfriars. Watching him being driven to suicide, the revelation that he may just be tramp mumbling to himself in the Underground despised by his former friends and himself, the seeming hopelessness of his situation created a disturbing frisson. This "nervous breakdown versus reality" angle could have been explored more but possibly Gaiman thought that that would undermine the fantasy of London Below. While there were undoubtedly some allegorical points made about the dispossessed in modern urban life, London Below was no metaphor, it was a genuine parallel world of adventure.

Crucially though the biggest flaw was the look. It seems churlish of me to mention it in light of the relatively tiny budget the makers had to work with. In fact producer Clive Brill and the designer achieved miracles with the Floating market, night filming and locating atmospheric places to frame the story. But too often the programme looked dull and mundane thanks to Dewi Humphries' bland direction. Scenes that were crying out for clever camerawork and more importantly superb lighting were rendered flat and very cheap. Amazingly the episode that really suffered was the vital opening one. Yet occasionally he hit the style perfectly, such as Richard's dream, Islington's chamber or Blackfriars. When the direction could be so good it made it only more frustrating when the next poor scene arrived. If only they could have afforded to use film which would have made so much more of the wonderful London Below environment. A little more in the way if special effects might have caught the viewer's imagination in the vital early stages of the series. When the Marquis De Carabas or Door simply appeared or disappeared with a camera cut it smacked not so much of subtlety but poverty. A soupson of CGI effects would have only improved the weird atmosphere that the series only fitfully achieved. It is easy to sneer at the US's glossy but often vapid fantasy entries but in a competitive market place there is little forgiveness for a shoddily packaged product not matter how good it's ingredients. It is not that British can not achieve decent SF production values as Cold Lazarus and Invasion:Earth have proved. But it requires the powers that be to take a chance. Neil Gaiman and Crucial Films no doubt had to fight hard for the low budget they did get.

The programme's real strength lay in the marvellous performances of three of its leads. Gary Bakewell made Richard into a very likeable hero which was no mean feat given that he spent most of the story asking dumb questions, looking scared and whinging. But he brought out the essential decency of Richard, making his metamorphosis, from a woolly minded executive to a warrior ready to sacrifice his life, a believable change. It was surprising though that after he had survived the Ordeal he did not immediately become more confident and active which would have made more sense and enhanced his character. Laura Fraser was an appealing heroine with her mixture of aristocratic bearing and waifish vulnerability. But the actor who really understood the series and hit the mark beautifully was Paterson Joseph as the rakish Marquis De Carabas. Firing off one-liners against all and sundry, believing himself at least three steps ahead of the game, he was a hugely entertaining character.

Unfortunately on the debit side Tanya Moodie as Hunter, was great at fighting but not too great at talking. Ironically her best moment came with her death scene. As the assassins Hywel Bennett and Clive Russell continued the dual nature of the series by often being extremely good but then becoming excruciatingly hammy in the worst way elsewhere. Out of the rest of the offbeat characters Peter Capaldi was perfectly cast as Islington, making him a charismatic and otherworldly being rather than merely a man in a gown. However the wooden spoon must go to Julie T Wallace who completely fails to register as Serpentine with her leaden delivery of her lines.

I really wanted Neverwhere to succeed, to become the next big hit to follow in the misty wake of The X-Files. It is not going to be that, at least not yet. But with another series to iron out the problems, a better director, it could take off because there is always Gaiman's inventiness underpinning it all, even if it has been compromised by time and money. Those who stayed the course were rewarded by a superb final episode that nearly succeeded in achieving the mixture of wonder and excitement that Dave McKean's evocative title sequence promised. Trouble was, that should have been the first episode.

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