STACK #181 Nov 2019

TV FEATURE

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Renowned fantasy writer Neil Gaiman talks to STACK about adapting his much-loved collaboration with the lateTerry Pratchett, Good Omens , as a BBC mini-series. Words Scott Hocking

N eil Gaiman’s best- selling novels Stardust and Coraline have been adapted as successful feature films and, more recently, American Gods was brought to life as a television series. But when it came to mounting a TV adaptation of Good

child Antichrist and the spookily accurate prophecies of a witch named Agnes Nutter, this whimsical comic fantasy was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and has gained an enormous cult following over the decades. Now the novel has been

muses. “The technology wasn’t there. There’s an incredible amount of CGI used in lots of different ways [in the series]. There’s the big, obvious CGI and then there’s the sort where people will say, ‘Where in Soho were you filming?’ And I will have to say, ‘That was a car park on a disused airfield and we went in and digitally made it Soho.” That’s not to say attempts weren’t made over the decades. “Terry Gilliam spent years trying to get it made and was never able to get it off the ground, despite having a fantastic script,” says Gaiman. “And at one point Terry actually had Johnny Depp and Robin Williams as Crowley and Aziraphale. He expected people to make it but the timing was wrong. He went to Hollywood to pitch it just after 9/11, and nobody was interested in an end of the world comedy at that point.” Fast forward to 2019, and a story concerning a world spiraling towards Armageddon suddenly becomes scarily topical. “I think we were really lucky in that [the

P h ot o c r e d i t B e o w u l f S h e e h an

adapted as a six-episode BBC mini-series, written by Gaiman and showcasing a wonderful double act by Michael Sheen and David Tennant (as angel and demon, respectively) alongside an all-star cast that includes Jon Hamm, Michael McKean, Miranda Richardson, and Frances McDormand as the voice of God. When STACK speaks with Gaiman, one of the first things we ask is why a screen adaptation of Good Omens took so long to materialise. “I think it was the technical challenges,” he

Neil Gaiman

Omens , which he co-wrote with author Terry Pratchett ( Discworld ),

Gaiman made it his personal mission to deliver something his late friend and collaborator would be proud of. First published in 1990, Good Omens is a satirical take on the biblical Armageddon, which a demon named Crowley and his angel pal Aziraphale are attempting to sabotage in order to maintain their cozy lifestyle in England. Featuring chattering satanic nuns, a displaced

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