Audible’s audio adaptation of “The Sandman,” written and narrated by Neil Gaiman, and directed by Dirk Maggs, is a dramatic reading of the first 20 issues of the comic, with an all-star cast, Hollywood levels of sound design, and a superb score by composer James Hannigan — nothing more, nothing less. This is not a prototype for Netflix’s upcoming take: it’s an epic audiobook, for visually impaired fans, or those who want the comic read (or reread) to them by A-list performers.
Some minor rearranging of the issues aside (ie. issue #19, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ is the last one performed), this is an unabridged audio description, each issue translated into typically half-hour chapters: its highs are the comic’s highs, its warts mostly its warts. The major new addition here is Gaiman’s descriptive writing, which is as rich and lush as anything else he’s written; sometimes you may hear new background dialogue, but otherwise, every time you think something has been altered, you’ll check and find the line is right there in the source material.
Those who’ve read “The Sandman” will start to recognize the advantage a comic has over audio, which is that the reader can decide what pace they read through a story: while sitting through a less interesting chapter, you’ll still find much to admire in the acting, effects and music, but not as much to enjoy. On paper, “The Sandman” was as boundless as the Dreaming itself: here it feels constrained, restless at covering the same ideas again.
Similarly, the absence of imagery demonstrates how vital they were to stories like ‘A Dream of a Thousand Cats,’ where Kelley Jones’s hyperreal cat drawings highlighted how surreal it was that they could talk: here, they blend into everything else. The flipside is that we get to hear what we never considered, like the noises of the spirits summoned during the duel in Hell; the Threshold having a heartbeat; or what the voices of the Corinthian’s “eyes” sound like — the last reveal is particularly unexpected, and terrifying.
James McAvoy is an unexpectedly youthful choice for Dream/Morpheus: he compensates for this with a slow and halting accent, like someone who’s recently learned English, emphasizing the sounds in words that you don’t expect — it’s a surprisingly realistic touch for a character older than eternity. Depending on who he’s talking to, he can be aloof, yet snappy, or surprisingly casual; his boyish side shines through when Dream becomes emotional, accentuating how unusual it is to hear that side of the character.
Being disarmingly youthful is also the case with Kat Dennings as Death, Taron Egerton’s John Constantine, or Matthew Horne as the immortal Hob Gadling. Dennings’s nasal voice reminds us that Gaiman’s Death is meant to resemble a teenager, and after the initial shock of her sounding like Mabel from Gravity Falls subsides, her sincere performance may already start to replace the Death you hear in your head. Egerton brings a fresh take on Constantine with his comedic but vulnerable performance, while Horne’s Hob is distinctly physically different from his comics counterpart.
Similarly, Justin Vivian Bond and Miriam Margolyes’s takes on Desire and Despair may be vocally higher than you’d imagined them, while you’ll be in for a pleasant surprise when you hear what accent Michael Roberts has chosen for Cain. The characters who generally most feel like their comics incarnations are the ones who often appear outside “The Sandman,” whether they’re the DC superheroes who prominently cameo in the several first issues, or Michael Sheen’s Lucifer — Sheen does a splendid impression of David Bowie, which perfectly evokes the inspiration for the character’s look, as well to suppress the natural sweetness of his Welsh accent.
Riz Ahmed’s take on the Corinthian is strangely subdued, even after settling into an American accent; his voice is slow and creepy, giving the character a different vibe from the brash, sleazy one he had in print. As a result, he’s overshadowed by other villains like Alan Marriott’s charismatic “hunter” Nimrod, or William Hope’s diabolical yet pathetic John Dee. Overall, the voiceover work is generally fantastic, other than the odd moment when a British repertoire player is clearly struggling with the US pronunciation of certain words.
Continued belowHannigan’s beautiful soundtrack does a wonderful job of helping distinguish the diverse settings we’re transported to over the course of this 12-hour odyssey: it’s an utter tour-de-force, bringing in any instrument you can imagine from across the globe. The sound effects are where Amazon’s investment feels like it’s been largely spent though: you can hear everything, whether it’s the howl of wind and rain, to animals; the noise of scribbling pens, typewriters, automobiles, gates and doors; or the reverberation of voices in helmets; the classic clips overheard on TV; and the monstrous, modulated voices of the demons, it truly feels like you’re listening to the audio of an unreleased film.
A very long film of course — as sweeping as this, it will become as exhausting to sit through as a charity reading marathon, if you choose to binge listen to the entire production. Perhaps Audible should’ve staggered the release of these 20 chapters, to make it appear less like a condensed whole; either way, they should’ve placed credits at the end of each segment, because it feels disrespectful that we have to wait until the very end to learn which cast members voiced certain characters — especially if they had considerably larger roles than some of the headliners.
So let’s conclude with a shout out to Shey Greyson, who is the heart and soul of the second half as Rose Walker — the best thing this drama does is remind us how important her character was in the comic, just as you would remember if you were reading it: hopefully, she’ll get a larger credit on the next recorded issues of the series.
