The Sandman: Why everyone should be watching Netflix new hit series

You know that feeling you get when you hear a particularly beautiful piece of music? It makes your heart ache a bit?

That’s what I feel when I watch, read and listen to The Sandman. And I’m going to do my best to explain why, and why you should watch it. Or read it. Or listen to it.

There will be no spoilers. I promise.

I should caveat this review with a warning that I was predisposed to like The Sandman.

I am a massive fan of Neil Gaiman, since I discovered American Gods as a wide eyed child. There was no turning back.

His stories captured my young imagination like nothing else.

Particularly because the beauty and wonder of the world was not dependent on who I was. I did not have to be born into the Bennet household in regency England, nor go on childhood holidays with friends, a dog, and an abnormal number of smugglers.

I just had to open my eyes. The promise of magic and wonder was woven into the tall concrete buildings and creaky, gnarled trees.

Witches and dragons, gods and demons, all hiding and whispering around me. A battle playing out right above me.

For work, and for my sins, I have to spend a lot of time on certain social media, bleeding through my eyes until I can barely keep them open.

A sewer of transphobia, homophobia, misogyny and racism, battling for supremacy like animals in a too small cage. A Petri dish of human misery.

The work of Gaiman, as it was when I was growing up, is still an escape for me. And nothing epitomises this more than The Sandman.

Within The Sandman is a world both intriguingly complicated and peacefully simple.

A world that rises above petty, twittery squabbles. A world where people exist as they are. Magnificent and terrifying, moving and poetic.

Our Netflix adaptation starts with Charles Dance (who is looking fantastic by the way) on a mission to capture Death, in the hope they will restore his son back to him in return for their freedom.

However, when the dust settles on the spell, they realise that they have captured Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams. The Sandman. Uh oh. Chaos ensues.

I have promised no spoilers, and will not break that promise, so this is admittedly vague (I feel I’ve created a rod for my own back here.)

The sweeping epic takes us across Earth, Hell and many realms, all lush and breathtaking.

Despite this, we don’t get lost, it translates perfectly to the screen, with a little nifty narration along the way.

On top of the scenery, literally, it is a who’s who of talent.

Jenna Coleman dominating the screen as Joanna Constantine, David Thewlis giving me nightmares as Dr Destiny and Kirby Howell-Baptiste melting my heart as Death.

All with Tom Sturridge looking like he’s clambered straight off the page and onto the set.

It is addictive and dark, proper binge-worthy telly, and as many have said before, the best TV of the year by far (sorry Stranger Things).

If you want to lose yourself completely, then immerse yourself in this.

The scope of the story is massive, but it is driven by the humanity that is right at the centre.

All art represents life, and The Sandman is, more than anything I’ve ever seen, about life.