Good Omens audio drama coming this Christmas

Exciting news for fans of fantasy, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s version of the Armageddon, Good Omens, will be dramatised for Christmas!

For those unfamiliar with the novel:

Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield. Atlantis is rising, fish are falling from the sky, the Four Horsepersons are assembling; everything seems to be going to the Divine Plan.
Everything that is, but for the unlikely duo of an angel and a demon who are not all that keen on the prospect of the forthcoming Rapture. In fact the prospect of Armageddon is all really rather inconvenient for them actually. But if they are to stop it taking place they’ve got to find and kill the one who will bring about the Apocalypse: the Antichrist himself. There’s just one small problem: someone seems to have mislaid him.

The hugely popular book was released way back in 1990 and was recently honoured as one of the Nation’s 100 favourite books – one of the few fantasy novels to make the list. It is being produced by the same team that created Radio 4’s version of Neverwhere last year. I’m sure most of you have heard that by now, but if you haven’t it was excellent and picked up many favourable review. It starred James McAvoy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Natalie Dormer and Sir Christopher Lee and many, many more.

Good Omens began its recording in a secret London location yesterday. Its cast will include Colin Morgan (Merlin, The Fall) as Newton Pulsifer, Josie Lawrence (Skins, EastEnders) as Agnes Nutter and Paterson Joseph (Peep Show, Green Wing) as Famine, as well as a host of cameos, from the Gardeners’ Question Time team to Neil and Terry themselves. Apparently there are some special cameos that will ‘delight readers’ that are being kept under wraps too.

Edit: further cast members announced: “Mark Heap (Spaced, Green Wing, Stardust) and Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians Of The Galaxy, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Shaun Of The Dead) will be taking the central roles as angel and demon, Aziraphale and Crowley, respectively. The star-studded cast will also include Clive Russell (Game Of Thrones, Ripper Street), Julia Deakin (Spaced, Hot Fuzz), Louise Brealey (Sherlock), Simon Jones (Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy), Arsher Ali (Four Lions, Complicit, Beaver Falls), Phil Davis (Silk, Whitechapel, Being Human) and Mark Benton (Waterloo Road, Land Girls).”

The six part presentation will not air until December, so there is quite a wait. From what we’ve heard, five of the episodes will be 30 minutes with the finale being an hour – so 3 hours in total.

Gwyneth Williams, Controller, BBC Radio 4, says: “I’m delighted to have Neil Gaiman back on Radio 4 – and this time with Terry Pratchett. I can’t wait to hear what they will do with the Apocalypse. The Radio 4 audience loved Neverwhere and Good Omens will be a splendid Christmas treat.”

The BBC are rightly excited about this show, it will inevitably do well for them. Neverwhere received more iPlayer requests than any other radio programme in the month it aired and attracted more than 1.5 million visitors to the programme page. Imagine what those figures will be like now Terry Pratchett is in on the action…

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