STACK #181 Nov 2019

TV

FEATURE

A DREAM CAST

the point where I wrote the first five thousand words of the thing that would become Good Omens . So yes, I think Douglas was definitely a huge influence.” Gaiman is melancholic when he recalls the circumstances that led to his writing the mini- series adaptation, following Pratchett’s death in March 2016. “Terry and I had been looking for a writer for a long time. The BBC had made it very clear that they wanted to make it. We’d spoken to Terry Jones of Monty Python but we didn’t know at the time he was at it and thought, ‘This doesn’t feel like Good Omens .’ That was actually a good thing to feel; it helped bring into focus what Good Omens was. “After Terry Jones, we asked a lot of writers – fancy, important and famous writers – and they all said no. We didn’t really have an alternative, at which point I got a letter from Terry saying, ‘You have to do this because you’re the only person out there who has the same understanding and love for the old girl as I do. You have to make this.’ “And then Terry died, which turned it into a last request. And now that I was dealing with a last request, I honestly would have much rather not made it. But I felt like I owed this one to Terry. As a result of which, while making it, I was a much grumpier and more driven and dedicated showrunner than I would have been if it had been something by me, because I knew that I was making it for Terry. I knew it going through his own issues. His pitch was kind of useful in some ways because we looked

series] got made at the perfect time for it to get made,” he says. “People have asked me, ‘How come it’s so timely considering it’s based on a book written 30 years ago?’ And I have to tell them that I kind of wish sometimes that it was less timely, because it is Armageddon fiction.” Gaiman promises a very faithful adaptation of the novel albeit with a few tweaks, such as updating the story to reflect today's technology

Good Omens is so perfectly cast, which begs the question: Did Gaiman write it with particular actors in mind? “When I started writing it, I thought that Michael Sheen was going to be Crowley. I was writing it with him in mind as Crowley. When I got to episode three I started thinking that I would love David Tennant as Crowley and Michael as Aziraphale. That was my dream casting. Of course I’m old enough to know that you never get your dream casting. But I was incredibly lucky, and did.”

(Crowley invents the selfie!). “If you love the book, you’ll love the TV show. There aren’t huge changes for the sake of changing things. On the other hand there’s definitely some new stuff. There are lots of people and things that Terry and I talked about for a sequel. And never having made the sequel, I was happy to put them in.”

If you love the book, you’ll love the TV show

Good Omens is distinctly the voices of Gaiman and Pratchett, but at the same time possesses an unmistakable Monty Python and Douglas Adams flavour. Gaiman confirms that both were indeed an influence when writing the book. “I think that Python was a huge influence on me, and on Terry. The morality of Life of Brian – the moral point of view and the outrage is something that creeps into Good Omens as well. “As a young journalist I had interviewed Douglas many times and I was fortunate enough to have been hired to do The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Companion , which I wrote in 1987. And having written that, I went, ‘You know what? I really love this style – it’s a really nice style to write in.’ And that was

• Good Omens is out on Nov 13

didn’t just have to satisfy me; it had to satisfy the Terry Pratchett looking over my shoulder. "It was a lot of work, but I felt like we got there in the end.” When asked what he thinks Pratchett’s opinion of the show might have been, Gaiman pauses. “If by some beautiful, wonderful miracle Terry could be put back here on Earth, I think he would watch the whole six episodes and then come over to me and say, ‘Listen, you know that bit in episode two, if you just do this, this and this, you’d have made it 17 per cent funnier.’ I think that’s what we probably would have got. “It would have been wonderful to have had him for this. His wisdom, his understanding of comedy, and his understanding of human nature would have just made it better. But I think he would have liked it.”

Images © Amazon Studios, BBC

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