Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Richard Dormer, Lara Rossi, Adam Hugill, Marama Corlett, Jo Eaton-Kent, Samuel Adewunmi, Bianca Simone Mannie, Craig Macrae, Wendell Price, Joe Vaz, Shane John Kruger, Anna Chancellor, Paul Kaye, Natalie Walsh, Matt Berry, Marc Hyland, Ingrid Oliver, Ralph Ineson, Trevor Frost, Russell Crous, Ruth Madeley, James Fleet, Jonathan Pienaar, Tarryn Wyngaard, Hakeem Kae-Kazim.
If the Devil is in the detail, then it must have taken one hell of a being to come up with the intricacies that lay in the world of Ankh-Morpork, and the realm that encompasses Discworld.
Even the uninitiated have heard of Sir Terry Pratchett, a name such as his has found a way to transcend the mortal life and become part of the language, and the company he keeps, Dickens, Austen, King, are reflections of the worlds they have created and to which the television and cinematic adaptations have either been consciously mind-blowing or have struggled to keep up with the ideas and insight written down by the author.
However, in a novel move for television, The Watch doesn’t follow the same route as Going Postal, Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, as it based on the book of the same name but not as you would immediately recognise. Instead, it trusts the viewer to be part of a journey of introduction to certain characters, notably Watch Captain Sam Vimes, Lady Sybil Ramkin, Constable Carrot Ironfoundersson and Throat Dibbler, and the world of perpetually suspended belief, as Terry Pratchett’s imagination will be given the full and unequal treatment it deserves in the years to come.
The Watch will divide, of that there is no doubt, of those who are purists, and those to whom perhaps diverged in the modern fantasy novel era of joining fellow British author Tom Holt down his particular open road; and that is not only to be expected, it is to be celebrated.
Celebration for the vision, a memorial to the courage and observance, for it takes fertile, imaginative dreamers to step into the shoes of Sir Terry Pratchett, it takes audacity of spirit to go where others may fear to tread, and yet through the combined writing expertise of Simon Allen, Amrou Al-Kadhi, Ed Hime, Catherine Tregenna and Joy Wilkinson, The Watch is a colourful expedition into the mind of an undoubted genius, and whilst the man himself may not be around anymore to oversee his world being placed on the screen, his presence fills every episode of the eight-part series.
There is no time to stop and think, it is a series you have to roll with, and by the end you realise just how invested you have become with the characters, the layout, the vibe of the city-state assassins, Communist endorsing goblins, and the point of Ankh-Morpork; the magic it fills the mind with.
With terrific performances from Richard Dormer in arguably his best role in television to date as Captain Sam Vimes, Jo Eaton-Kent as Corporal Cheery, Lara Rossi as Lady Sybil Ramkin, Samuel Adewunmi as Carcer Dun, and Matt Berry, Ingrid Oliver and Ruth Madeley, The Watch is exactly that, dedicated, brave, superb anarchy, and it must be congratulated for being true to the life being breathed into from a long since gone, but always loved, creator.
Ian D. Hall