The one who wrote Coraline, and co-wrote the book of Good Omens and made the TV show, also the Sandman comics writer and co-creator who made the Sandman TV show. Quite nice really.
Having decided for
myself that Anansi
Boys might share the same pantheon as American
Gods, since starting to read the novel I’d been looking
for confirmation of Mr. Nancy’s description of his “good” but “stupid” son, whom
Shadow reminded him of and whom Nancy “didn’t see as much as [he’d] like.” However, in my
journey through the novel, instead of another “Shadow” I had
anticipated to meet I found an endearing young man who’s as good
natured as Shadow yet much more clueless and clumsy than Shadow had ever been,
and who, much different from Shadow’s initially being a “man-shaped hole in the
world,” was very self-conscious and embarrassed easily. And that’s so darn
cute.
The novel was so charming, delightful, and funny – well, for
most of it that
didn’t include the murder of Maeve Livingstone – that I smiled,
giggled, and laughed a lot while reading it (as well as feeling worried,
shocked, and scared for some characters). I smiled whenever Fat Charlie subconsciously
and continually put his foot in his mouth, especially around Rosie’s mother,
and when Spider,
the master imposter, swaggered around in Fat Charlie’s office and convinced everybody with
his godly power that he’s his unfortunate brother; I giggled
when Charlie’s bad luck reached the maximum and had his head banged on the
overhead locker on his flight en route to Florida, and when he described himself as a “lunatic transatlantic pingpong
ball;” I
was shocked when Maeve had her head bashed in by the villain Grahame Coats, worried when
Rosie and her mother were locked up by Coats in the meat locker that he’s got in his
basement, (were they gonna be OK?) and relieved when Rosie decided that she’s not afraid
and that she could save her mother and herself, etc. What a ride. The medium-length book was in fact a massive
mixture of humor, horror, suspense, and myths, and I really
enjoyed it. And my
being enjoying the book so much was one of the reasons why I had been both excited
and nervous about the radio adaptation at first: I was worried thinking what if
the actors couldn’t fully deliver their characters, and what if the adaptation
simply didn’t do its original any justice.
However, the adaptation proved that my worries were quite superfluous, for it didn’t disappoint. Not at all.
A) The first thing, in my humble opinion,
that makes a podcast different from and more difficult to plot than a novel or
a film/TV drama is
that the story has to be conveyed thoroughly through the combination of voices
and sound effects instead of images, or the image painted by words. Without a
meticulous execution, the setting and the background of the story and the inner
voice of the characters that can be fully depicted in a novel could
be completely missing
in the podcast, even if said podcast got a narrator. Because I had been concerned
by the ability of the radio adaptation to fully convey the story before
the broadcast took place, I was incredibly satisfied and happy with the result
after I finally listened to it.
I think it’s remarkable that the adaptation achieved
making everything happened in the story clearly comprehensible
solely by sound
effects and without the help of any lengthy narration: I like the portrayal of
Spider’s extraordinary “makeover” of Charlie’s originally closet-sized spare
room; I like the colorful scene where Charlie’s sent by the four elderly women
(witches) to the Beginning of the World for the first time and visiting those
animal Gods, each of whom had a very distinguishable voice, such as Elephant,
Tiger, Monkey, and the Bird woman; I like the execution of the background
music, the rhythm, and the sound effects in the shocking scene where Maeve was cold-bloodedly
murdered by Coats. I “absatively” like that the adaptation effectively dissolved the
narrative passages into conversations in order to make a clear point. The most
representative example of which occurred in the passage where Charlie accidentally
knocked on Coat’s door, talked to him on the speakerphone, and alerted him
of Charlie’s presence in Saint Andrews. While the passage was written in the novel
rather implicatively in order to create a suspenseful vibe, the podcast retold
it in the form of a conversation mostly from Coats’ POV to ensure that the
point of the passage was correctly delivered to the audience who’s only acquainted with
the story by listening to it.
B) Another
thing I like about the radio adaptation is how it played with the material
it’s adapted from: I like that it was able to find a way to deconstruct the novel,
and then re-arranged the ingredients advisably according to the time it’s
given; I personally think it’s neat that the radio 4 successfully adapted the
more-than-300-page novel into a mere 3-hour-long nice paced podcast. I like
that the podcast began with Fat Charlie giving a heartfelt speech at a WRONG
funeral and was called back by Mrs. Higgler; it’s such a tight, hilarious, dramatic
start for the podcast, and shed an honest light on Charlie’s character from the
very beginning. I also like that despite that the story had been shortened in order to fit in
a 6-episode podcast some hilarious little details were made sure to be mentioned in
passing, such as the penguin candles, the wax fruit incident, and the lime that
did its best to help, which was not at all. (And the passage about the lime was adapted verbatim.)
C) Finally,
I just want to say that I really enjoyed the performance of each and every
actor involved in the podcast. Jacob Anderson’s Fat Charlie was exactly the
same as I had imagined when I read the book, and he sounded even more authentic
to the character when he added a nervous stutter; Nathan
Stewart-Jarrett’s Spider WAS 100% Spider from the book, who’s charming, carefree,
playful, and persuasive, and who spoke in American accent; with his lighthearted laughter, Lenny
Henry officially made Anansi sound alive and extremely convincing; Tanya Moodie’s
Mrs. Higgler sounded strict yet funny and was loyal to the description Gaiman
wrote in the novel; Adjoa Andoh’s Bird woman made a great effort to imitate a
bird that spoke perfect English in an intonation of “birdish" … Not to mention, Julian Rhind-Tutt’s Grahame Coats
made the word “absatively,” which Gaiman creatively invented, sound perfectly nature
it sounded almost like a real word.
I
also have got to mention here that it’s such a wonderful surprise hearing
Gaiman’s cameo appearance in the podcast as the phone voice (in the 5th episode). It’s
sorta like the time when Tayler Swift made a brief cameo in the film adaptation
of the Giver as Rosemary, only with more lines and was much funnier and
cheekier. I chuckled a lot listening to Gaiman’s demonstration of the phone
voice.
Overall,
I just want to say that I enjoyed and liked the podcast very much, and one
would definitely be disappointed if they were expecting to read some criticism in this review, because
you won’t hear any critiques from me.
A
big “Thank You" to everyone involved in the producing of the incredible radio adaptation of Anansi Boys: the adaptation made my winter break even more joyful and my New Year even happier.
** If you haven’t listened to the podcast– you can still listen to it on BBC (6 episodes in total): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09ghv0c The podcast will be available for another 20 - 25 days (depending on the episode).
