We figured out our angels and stuff like that back then,” Gaiman explains. “Some of the extra things were stolen from plans that Terry and I had for sequel we never did, and for work that we planned out for a film script version in 1991. But before purists fret, Gaiman conceived many of these changes with Pratchett's input. Gaiman's surprises come in the form of digressions from the novel, for example, new characters like the dashing archangel Gabriel, played by Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame. In hope of averting it, they seek out the Antichrist, who, due to a mix-up at birth, has grown up in an Oxfordshire home, unaware of his powers. The story begins a week before the world is doomed to end, an event that would be an inconvenience to the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley. But also, I wanted surprises, I wanted excitement.” “So I spent 18 months writing six scripts and trying to reinvent it for television, while still staying faithful, because I knew that we have tens of millions of people around the world who would murder me if it was not. I was basically saying okay and then he died, which made it a last request. “And in the summer of 2014, when Terry had a very peculiar Alzheimer’s where he was very compos mentis but couldn’t deal with objects – it was tragic and awful – he wrote me a letter, and he said, ‘you have to do this because I want to watch it before the lights go out, and you’re the only person who has the same care and love and passion for the old girl that I have’. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman at the World Fantasy Convention in November 1990 in Schaumburg, Illinois. “Finally, we thought, let’s make a TV series out of it, so we went out, and began looking for someone to do the adaptation. “ spent many years trying to get it made as a movie, but failed,” says Gaiman, explaining the history of the adaptation. If the responsibility of reinterpreting a deeply-loved classic wasn't enough, Gaiman also found the project being Pratchett's last wish before he died in 2015 of Alzheimer's, a disease which Pratchett referred to, with wonderful humour, as an 'embuggerance'.

The series, which lands at the end of May, is based on the book Gaiman co-wrote with the equally revered author Terry Pratchett, in 1990. Last year, the cult comic book creator, novelist, children's writer and journalist (for starters) signed an exclusivity deal with Amazon, and Good Omens will be the first release since. The better news is that it's only the start of Gaiman's televisual offerings for 2019.

Neil gaiman terry pratchett death