Film, TV & Radio

Casting the New Dirk Gently

August 25th 2010, 09:08pm

Since BBC 4 have announced there will be a TV adaptation of Dirk Gently, but there are few actually details to be garnered (aside from the fact that Vexed writer Howard Overman is adapting – hurray) there’s nothing to do but idly speculate about the casting.

Svlad/Dirk “Gently” Cjelli
Dylan Moran/Benedict Cumberbatch/Toby Stephens

Richard MacDuff
David Mitchell

Professor Urban “Reg” Chronotis
James Fox/Andrew Sachs (each has played the part before)

Michael “Wednesday” Wenton-Weakes
Michael Fenton-Stephens (as on the radio)

Susan Way
Shelley Conn (Party Animals)

Gordon Way
Silas Carson (Hustle, Doctor Who)

Janet Pearce
Nia Roberts (Doctor Who)

Just to be clear: I’m idly speculating about who would be good; I’ve no idea who is being cast or considered.  Though actually Dylan Moran was @matchtrick’s suggestion, and Cumberbatch was @mrmzholland’s (and would make him the first person to play both of literatures great detectives on TV!)


  • trpw

    Doesn’t Dirk/Svlad need to be a bit fleshy? That would point more to someone like David Mitchell in manic mode.
    Dirk is also brilliant almost effervescent which has never been part of any Dylan Moran persona (not he couldn’t do it) but is why Cumberbatch (plus a couple of stone) would be good.

    I’d go for someone like James Bachman or Justin Edwards as Michael Wenton-Weekes.

    The Ways, Wenton-Weekes, MacDuff and Cjelli all have to be around the same age (early thirties) or pass for near contemporaries.

  • http://www.littlestorping.co.uk Simon Wood

    Dirk does need effervescence, so Cumberbatch is becoming my top choice (even though Sherlock makes this unlikely).

    I can see what you’re thinking with James Bachman… But Fenton-Stephens is closer to the role as I imagine it. When I heard him on the radio it was the one role I thought was perfectly cast (that’s not to criticise others’ performances, it’s just they didn’t match the way the characters were realised in my mind).

    I can see that Gently and MacDuff need to be contemporaries: it’s key to their relationship that they were contemporaries at University (given they seem to have little else in common). But how much would it matter if Wenton-Weakes was a little older, or there was a 10 year age difference between the Ways…?

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