Neil Gaiman Does Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs is a British Institution. The format is simple: a guest is invited by the host to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. Since it was created in 1942, the show has had hundreds of guests including such illustrious people such as Tom Hanks, Lily Allan and Bill Gates.

Now comic writer and creator of such great works as The Sandman and Coraline, Neil Gaiman, shares his list of essential tracks, a book and luxury. For those interested, here is the link to listen to the episode from the BBC website.

The Sandman Coming to Audible

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman was a critically acclaimed original comic series which ran for 75 issues. Over the years it won 26 Eisner Awards, topped various ‘Best Comic Series’ lists and has been called the Shakespeare of comics. There have been many spin-offs, side projects and divergent series since the original run but the rumours of a movie or TV series have been swirling since time immemorial. However, until this is realised, those bods at Audible are releasing the series as audio books. Gaiman will be narrating but there is be an impressive cast list including James McAvoy, Michael Sheen, Taron Egerton (excellent as Moomin Troll in Moominvalley), Kat Dennings and Riz Ahmed.

I’ve already pre-ordered the first volume, which is going to cover the first 3 graphic novels, and can’t wait to enter the world of the Endless. The first volume drops on 15th July 2020.

Coraline: The Opera Review

Coraline is a modern classic children's book with a story that is in the tradition of Grimm fairy tales. The novel is about an 11 year old girl, Coraline,  who moves to a new and mysterious house with her busy parents. As Coraline is left to her own devices she explores her new abode and discovers a doorway to a parallel world where everything seems much the same as her mundane world but with one key difference, the people have buttons for eyes.

"Fairytales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." This quote, attributed to G. K. Chesterton, prefaced the original run of the book in 2002 and seems suitable, as the tale of a lonely but resourceful young girl recalls the morals we learnt from fairy tales of old, before the Disney-fication of darker threads and plots from the original folk tales.

The book has an interesting premise and was turned into a popular stop motion animated movie in 2009 and has now, remarkably been turned into an opera. The story by Neil Gaiman, author of American Gods, the Sandman series of graphic novels and much more, seems to be a favourite amongst adults and children alike so seems like a good fit for the stage... but an opera, that is a bold move to say the least.

For a two week run the set was pretty impressive.

Whenever you bring a book and adapt it for the stage there is a difficult balancing act to perform, you want to make sure it stays true to the source material for the fan base without alienating those who don't know the original source material, but you also want to add flourishes and touches that are afforded by changing the medium the tale is told through. Couple that with the fact that this is an opera aimed at the youth and you have an incredibly difficult task on your hand.

So with all this in mind, how does the Coraline opera fare? Well, my only experience with opera was when I watched Count Hoffman by Offenback at the Theatro De La Scala in Milan 10 years ago (my friend and I did it to be all cultural but loved it), Satyagraha, the (very) long opera about the life of Gandhi which nearly drove me to madness with its Philip Glass score and 3 1/2 hour run time and lastly the amazing opera scene in Final Fantasy 6. So, my knowledge on the subject is scant at best but I really enjoyed this production.

The staging was impressive for an obviously small scale production. The music was good but hardly hummable or memorable, but it did the job well moving from sweet strings in one moment to a dark facsimile with a more herky jerky feel, recalling Susamu Yokota's creepy colliopy sound from his track Fukuro No Yume. Even though the whole performance had no surtitles, being familiar with the book and film I understood what was going on as everything was spoken in sing-song English.

The opera was just over 2 hours long and this seems like the perfect amount of time. I liked the opera but it did seem to take a long time to move along and there were periods where I was nodding off, but that's me listening to any type of music nowadays whilst being seated rather than a knock on the production. The show was a sellout and there was a huge mix in the audience with lots of young children as well as adults. 

Coraline the opera is worth seeing but not being an opera lover I won't be rushing to see any more operas for a few years.

Coraline at the Opera

Coraline is an atmospheric, spooky book by Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman graphic novel series, American Gods and many other books and comics. Coraline was turned into a brilliant stop motion animation movie nearly a decade ago but more recently it has been turned into an opera! The adaptation for the stage is by Mark-Anthony Turnage and runs at the Barbican from 29th March to the 7th April 2018. I've got two tickets and will be going but if you're interested click on the link below for the Barbican website.

End of Story for Comic Series Fables

After 13 years Fables, the multi award winning Vertigo series, comes to an end. Mark Buckingham, the artist of the series since the beginning was at Orbital Comics in London signing the graphic novels and comics. It was a pleasure to meet him, he was an affable and chatty guy.

Having read the last graphic novel I can say that it is a fitting end to the long running series and has many emotional beats that bring a closure to proceedings. It is sad to see the series end but with Buckingham moving onto Miracleman with Neil Gaiman it won't be too long until we see his sumptuous art again.

...And they all lived happily ever after

This is my signed final graphic novel.

It was wonderful to chat to Bill Willingham.