Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, with their flawed heroes, gnarled scoundrels and delicious daftness, make for magical TV adaptations. The latest, Going Postal, is about a soft-centred conman's struggle to locate his conscience, open a Post Office and, finally, triumph over evil.
Evil is pallid bully Reacher Gilt, played by David Suchet, whose performance perfectly marries Voldemort, Fagin and a pirate. In fact, seeing Suchet here like this, it's a shame that the man best known for playing a reserved Belgian detective isn't more often used in a roles that make children cry. His mad laugh and villainous grin would give a vampire goose bumps.
It's not only Suchet who shines. Richard Coyle (Coupling, The Whistleblowers) does excellent work as the faintly camp protagonist Moist Von Lipwig. And you'll want to slip adorable octogenarian Andrew Sachs into your breast pocket and feed him hunks of biscuit.
In the ladies' corner, there's Claire Foyle, who plays Lipwig's angry love interest. And Tamsin Greig stars as a nosey reporter with a kinky magnetism. Are you supposed to wonder whether she has a secret sex dungeon where she keeps muzzled elves? We certainly did.
Batting for fantastical characters of undisclosed gender is the shamefully under-cast Adrian Schiller as a banshee assassin, and an actor in a Golem costume. Golems are lumbering, clay giants with overactive commitment and honesty glands. Here they serve, loosely, as a sympathetic immigrant allegory.
Thankfully, Pratchett's whimsical metaphors are everywhere. He also helped with the script so Going Postal's dialogue has his slick, light touch and the plot never labours. Partly, that's because a lot happens. Lipwig escapes prison and death. Then, without so much as a power nap, he has to dust off and reopen the city's Post Office, thereby breaking Gilt's communications monopoly. Our delicious baddie owns (or, more accurately, stole) the world's only other long-distance messaging system, the Clacks.
There's little not to like about Going Postal but we should take this opportunity to reassure viewers that David Jason doesn't pop up at any point. This should sit somewhere in your top five reasons to make a date with your magic picture box tonight. Don't forget to Clacks all your friends!
It's certainly an improvement from The Colour of Magic which was cast completely incorrectly, from a 40-years-too-old main character to Tim Curry and which tried to bundle two books into one movie. OTOH, Hogfather was far better adapted, where the actors seem to have been chosen purely for their talent to play the characters and not for their fame. Going Postal suffers a bit from this as well: Richard Coyle is a good actor but he simply cannot portray someone who should be 15 years younger...
Really liked it. Is on par with the other two adaptations done by sky one