London Below is a place for those who have slipped through the cracks. It exists alongside our own London Above and is populated by people who are invisible or inconsequential to those above.
Filled with places and people named in puntastic fashion after recognisable London landmarks such as Night's Bridge, The Earl's Court (Freddie Jones), The Angel Islington (Peter Capaldi) and The Black Friars and where the population live in magical fiefdoms where rats speak, Roman Centurions roam and vampires lurk.
Our introduction to this world comes when businessman Richard Mayhew (Gary Bakewell) helps an injured girl named Door (Laura Fraser) escape from the murderous attentions of Mr Croup (Hywel Bennett) and Mr Vandemar (Clive Russell) and as a result of this act of kindness finds himself cast into London Below.
Created by Neil Gaiman and Lenny Henry the six part series aired in 1996 to a less than glowing reception and the cheap and nasty looking video it was filmed on has remained cheap and nasty looking but that very quality has perhaps aided it's longevity. The locations though are fabulous, this really is London as seen through other eyes, it's cast are, mostly, excellent - Bennett, Russell and Paterson Joseph (as the Marquis de Carabas) are especially good and there's some lovely and appropriately otherworldy music from Brian Eno.
This is Gaiman's baby though and it is quintessentially him. The world he has created here is very much a sister to the the ones he has created since in novels such as American Gods and The Graveyard Book. As an early attempt it is in many ways that and one that he has returned to and tinkered with on several occasions since through various versions of the novel (with a sequel just announced) and a 2013 radio play and, I'm sure he will again, in a no doubt fairly imminent and finally to be realised remake but in the meantime this is an entertainingly lo-fi version that is an enjoyable artifact of it's time.
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