Neverwhere was a six-part fantasy series from the pen of acclaimed comics writer Neil Gaiman, which was first broadcast on BBC2 in the autumn of 1996.
When Richard Mayhew, a young businessman working in London, stumbles upon a bleeding girl in the street he finds himself swiftly drawn into a bizarre world beneath the streets of London that is inhabited by the people who have 'fallen through the cracks.' Among the numerous bizarre characters he meets are the Angel Islington, the Black Friars, the Marquis de Carabas, and the sinister Mr Croup and Mr Valdemar who've been employed to catch Door, the girl who Richard found lying in the street.
Released at the same time as a douple-pack video of the series, Neverwhere was released by BBC Books purely as a tie-in to the series. The following years saw Gaiman's star very much in the ascendant and the book was subsequently re-written for the American market where it has now apparently gone on to sell over a million copies.
The original series hasn't been seen on British TV screens since its first transmission in 1996, although it has since become the subject of numerous queries on forums and message boards, with desperate pleas for information on the programme that featured the Angel Islington and a girl called Door.
Despite talk of a movie version nothing has yet come to fruition, but fans of the book can at least look forward to an as-yet unwritten sequel featuring the Seven Sisters which Gaiman has mentioned in a number of interviews.
