Terry Pratchett

Cable Girl: Going Postal

Sky's new adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel Going Postal is lovingly detailed and fantastically good fun - bank holiday weekend telly done to a tee.

The cosmology of Going Postal is perhaps best described as pre-Newtonian. The Earth is flat and rests on the back of three humungous elephants, which in turn rest on the back of a giant turtle. This, as Terry Pratchett devotees will know, is Discworld, an extensively chronicled alternative universe in which the knowing joke is one of the fundamental physical forces. Those who aren't Pratchett devotees might be pleasantly surprised by Going Postal, which is so nicely done that it makes a proselytising case for the author's distinctive imagination. Richard Coyle plays Moist von Lipwig, a con-man and fraudster who is saved from the gallows to bring a bit of healthy competition back to the communications industry in Ankh-Morpork. Charles Dance's Lord Vetinari invites him to revitalise the derelict postal system in order to give consumers an alternative to a kind of steampunk telegraphy system, run with monopolistic greed by the villainous Reacher Gilt.

Moist has no intention of doing any such thing, particularly since he soon learns that all his predecessors have died trying. But as he tries to raise enough funds to flee, he inadvertently invents postage stamps - and begins to be haunted by the consequences of his former frauds. He also has the problem of getting away from his probation officer, a giant golem called Mr Pump, who eventually brings him into contact with the love interest in the piece, a young woman who runs a golem rights consciousness-raising group. It looks terrific and is full of good jokes, including a running gag about Stanley, one of the junior postal clerks, who is an obsessive pin collector. In an attempt to make small talk with him, Moist mentions that he's seen Pins Monthly on the newsstands. "That rag is for hobbyists," hisses Stanley. "True pinheads only read Total Pins." There are appropriately scary villains, some lovely special effects, including a tsunami of undelivered letters that pursues Moist through the corridors of the old Post Office, and just enough real feeling to make you care about what happens next. One of the opening credits read "Mucked about by Terry Pratchett", but neither he, nor they, mucked it up.

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal Part One review

The first of a two-part adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel, Going Postal may be the best yet of Discworld stories brought to the small screen...

Sky has said it's trying to build a reputation for drama, and it's certainly going the right way about it. This adaptation of Sir Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel concludes tonight and it's a gloriously-realised, filmic vision of the fantasy universe.

It follows Sky's recent adaptations of Pratchett's Hogfather and The Colour Of Money, as well as bestsellers by Martina Cole and Chris Ryan. And with 20 more feature-length films in the works, all based on novels, Sky is definitely going to be giving the other channels a run for their money drama-wise.

Tonight opens excitingly, with the Ankh-Morpork post office in flames and under threat of closure from a flying banshee. The stellar cast is headed by Richard Coyle as conman-turned-postmaster Moist von Lipwig and Claire Foy as Adora Belle Dearheart.

But it's the spectacular scenery and special effects that make this an absolutely first-class show.

TV Pick of the Day: Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

Sky may not have the resources to churn out top home-grown drama on a routine basis, but when it does decide to throw its weight behind a production, as it's done for this latest Terry Pratchett Discworld adventure, then it certainly does it in style.

Sky1 continues its love affair with the fantasy world of Terry Pratchett with this lavishly put-together and thoroughly entertaining two-part adaptation of another of his Discworld comic novels. Coupling's Richard Coyle is low-rent conman Moist von Lipwig, who is saved from the scaffold to revive Ankh-Morpork's moribund post office. It's a poisoned chalice (he has serious competition from a rival company), and Moist's attempts to escape are regularly thwarted by both a clay creature called Mr Pump (like Marvin the Paranoid Android, without the doom-laden introspection) and Moist's own growing feelings for the equally theatrically named deposed heiress Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy). The story fairly rattles along with a host of well-known faces adding extra colour, the special effects are neatly integrated, and there are some distinctly spooky little touches to add a frisson of fear. Concludes tomorrow.

Sky may not have the resources to churn out top home-grown drama on a routine basis, but when it does decide to throw its weight behind a production, as it's done for this latest Terry Pratchett Discworld adventure, then it certainly does it in style.

Shot in HD, and with a fabulous British cast that includes David Suchet, Richard Coyle, Charles Dance, Claire Foy, Andrew Sachs, Steve Pemberton and Tamsin Greig, this Bank Holiday two-parter (concluding at the same time tomorrow) is a typically outlandish Pratchett tale about a lifelong con man who's given one last chance to avert the death sentence. The deal? He must take on the seemingly cursed task of trying to rescue Discworld's Post Office, under threat from their equivalent of the internet.

Meeting the stars, and writer, of Going Postal

Writer Terry Pratchett's Going Postal arrives on Sky1. He reveals why he would rather go to Hungary than Hollywood.

Sky's third venture into the cult fantasy world of Terry Pratchett (after Hogfather and The Colour of Magic), Going Postal again does justice to the author's peculiar vision. The weirdness of Discworld is appropriately captured in a tale of love and redemption which blends satire, humour and drama. It tells of a con artist, Moist von Lipwig (Richard Coyle), forced to atone for his crimes by taking the cursed role of postmaster at the dilapidated Ankh-Morpork's post office. The job puts him in the firing line of Reacher Gilt (David Suchet), who runs a rival delivery service, but also leads to an encounter with Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy). Concludes tomorrow.

Terry Pratchcett on defying dementia

Extrovert novelist Sir Terry Pratchett likes to make cameo appearances in the screen adaptations of his books - 'my one vanity', he calls it. He was a toymaker in the Hogfather, an astrozoologist in The Colour Of Magic and in the latest of his Discworld novels, Going Postal, he is briefly seen as a postman.