Neverwhere
Tags: alternate reality, fantasy

Plot synopsis:
Richard Mayhew, a Scot living in London, encounters an injured girl named Door on the street one night. Despite his fiancée's protests he decides to help her; upon doing so he ceases to exist on Earth and becomes real only to the denizens of 'London Below', whose inhabitants are generally invisible and non-existent to the people of 'London Above'. He loses his house, his job and nearly his mind as he travels London Below in an attempt to make sense out of it all, find a way back, and help Door survive as she is hunted down by hired assassins.
In London Below the various familiar names of London all take on a new significance: for example Knightsbridge becomes "Night's Bridge", a stone bridge whose darkness takes its toll in human life; The Angel, Islington is an actual angel. London Below is a parallel world in and beneath the sewers. Its inhabitants are the homeless, but also people from other times, such as Roman legionaries and medieval monks, as well as fictional and fantastical characters.
=== Characters and cast ===
Richard Mayhew (Gary Bakewell) – a young businessman, who discovers the world of London Below one day after helping the injured Door recover in his flat.
Door (Laura Fraser) – A young woman from London Below, the daughter of a noble family who were all murdered shortly before the beginning of the story. She possesses her family's innate ability to "open" things (and not just doors).
The Marquis de Carabas (Paterson Joseph) – The Marquis is arrogant, cunning and very self-confident. Though very much the trickster, he is a loyal friend of Door and her family. This character was inspired by Puss in Boots. Gaiman stated this as the starting point for the character, and imagining "Who would own a cat like this?"
Mr. Croup (Hywel Bennett) – The talkative half of the pair of assassins, the Messrs. He is short, fat, and speaks in a pompous and verbose manner. Like his partner, Mr. Vandemar, he seems to be able to simply move from one place to another very quickly despite his ungainly appearance. He is the brains of the pair and seems be the one calling the shots, and he apparently has a taste (literally) for fine china. Much of the imagery used to describe him is that of a fox.
Mr. Vandemar (Clive Russell) – Dull-witted, tall, and gangly, Vandemar is Croup's polar opposite. He does not speak much, and when he does, his statements are often laconic and blunt. He is quite brutish and seems to enjoy nothing more than killing and destroying things (even practising his golf swing with live toads). He also has a tendency to eat live animals. The descriptive imagery likens him to a hound or a wolf, and he even howls at one point when catching up with his mark.
Old Bailey (Trevor Peacock) – An old friend of the Marquis, he keeps the company of pigeons on the rooftops and wears clothing made of feathers. He became indebted to the Marquis long ago, and so is charged with keeping a portion of his life safe for him.
Hunter (Tanya Moodie) – A warrior of London Below; her feats are legendary. Her lifelong obsession is to slay the great Beast of London. The imagery used to describe her likens her to a lioness.
The Angel Islington (Peter Capaldi) – An angel dwelling in the sewers of London Below. Its duty is to watch over London Below, though (or maybe because) it failed at its previous task: guarding the city of Atlantis.
Lamia (Tamsin Greig) – The leader of a group of vampire-like seductresses, dressed in dark velvet, who "suck the warmth" from their victims.
The Abbott (Earl Cameron) – The leader of a group of armed black friars guarding a special key at Blackfriars.
The Earl (Freddie Jones)
=== Episodes ===
Neverwhere was first broadcast on BBC Two from 12 September 1996. There are six half-hour episodes:
Door
Knightsbridge
Earl's Court to Islington
Blackfriars
Down Street
As Above, So Below

Review: An interesting glimpse at what was to come.. Comic artist Richard Corben started making this animated short as a solo project while working at a studio in Kansas. His employers and co-workers found out about it and assisted Mr.Corben in completing and releasing it. As I understand, it played primarily at film festivals and science fiction conventions, gathering some awards along the way. It was at a sci-fi convention in the early eighties that I saw it. I thought it was pretty inventive and was interesting in that it showed the beginnings of the unique style he would develop over the decades that followed. It was also in NEVERWHERE that Corben introduced Den, his most famous character. For another look at Den,see HEAVY METAL.. Successful experiment.... Coming across NEVERWHERE on the internet brought back memories of working on a live, one hour weekly experimental film and video show (on Public Access). It boggles the mind to think that Richard Corben was on this level 40 years ago! The animation is fluid and boasts that distinctive Corben look. (I refer interested readers to Corben's current rendering of a story by Mike Mignola, THE CROOKED MAN, that borrows liberally from the late Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John the Balladeer stories.) I've said it before, but it bears repeating: it's about time someone- anyone, in any country- got behind a big budget cgi version of Corben's DEN- or MUTANT WORLD or any one of the countless stories he's illustrated over the years. Time's a'wastin'.