Disclaimer

This review was written before the Neil Gaiman allegations came to light and were corroborated by many people interviewed by Vulture writer, Lila Shapiro. We at Audio Drama Reviews do not condone what Gaiman has done or said in his defense. Most notably blaming his actions on his autism and downplaying the claims. All links to his work have been removed across this site. We apologize to those who worked on these projects, but we don’t like the idea of providing any author accused or such things with more money to potentially help continue their behavior.

Michael Bergonzi

Review

When you have the star of BBC’s Sherlock and a young Charles Xavier from X-men: First Class as part of the cast, the possibilities are endless. You don’t see the words “all-star cast” in audio dramas too much, but this deserves it. I’m just talking about the production value now. Don’t get me started on the story. I feel like I’ve reviewed Dirk Maggs’ work before on the site. Or at least, I’ve heard that name somewhere before.

The story is simple and at times, filled with too many tropes—at least in the first episode. That’s not to say they’re cliche, however. When they introduced the majority of the characters in that first episode, the main problem was that I could see the almighty hand of either the author or the person adapting the work for audio. For example, they make the protagonist be nice to everyone right from the start. That’s a good way to make a reader like a character, because we’re being shown who the character is, rather than being told. In an audio drama however, this feels a little awkward. I thought this throughout the first episode, but once episode two came along, I forgot all about it. That has to be my only complaint about this six part BBC Radio 4 production of Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere” (that and it’s no longer available). 🙁