American Gods review: Pleasing the disciples with a devout offering

Those who concoct stories of fantasy, sci-fi, horror and (to a less fervent extent) world religions tend to inspire devotion among their followers. Neil Gaiman's American Gods, a novel that has been categorised as all of the above, secured its acolytes by folding some of the most durable ancient myths into more disposable elements of Americana. In this supernatural roadmap of the US, old beliefs have been imported to a new world and left to drift, stranding religious icons in their retirement years.

As with many sacred texts there are competing versions of Gaiman’s opus, which imagines a war between the gods of Norse mythology, and the fetishised idols of contemporary worship, where everything from technology to market forces have been given corporeal shape.

Now comes a new testament, a TV series (now streaming on Amazon Prime), which opens with some sensationally bloody Viking sacrifices, as though its makers are slyly acknowledging the need to appease Gaiman's own fanbase. To judge from the first episode, it is a persuasive act of worship.

When our brooding protagonist, Shadow Moon (a sculpted and sheeny Ricky Whittle), is released early from jail, following the death of his wife and friend, he encounters a stranger he seems fated to meet. “It’s all about getting people to believe in you,” says the mysterious Mr Wednesday, a fellow aeroplane passenger. That he is played by Ian McShane, once again enjoying the dry comedy of acting the scoundrel, should be the first clue that this man is not all he seems. What he seems, in fact, may change at any given moment: he appears first as a doddery gent, swindling his way into first class – which is a useful miracle to know.

Written by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green, both experts in weaving (and reweaving) dark fantasy, the show is as unhurried as the book to confirm its intentions, preferring luxuriant visual embellishments of Gaiman's laconic ideas. Symbols and visions abound as Shadow reluctantly embarks on his journey as Mr Wednesday's bodyguard, grasped at in his dreams by enchanted tree branches, or taunted by a bull with flaming eyes, who merely commands, "Believe!"

That’s the imperative here. But the surreal twists that barely trouble a reader’s imagination can be perilous to depict on screen, as when a lustful goddess swallows a man whole during sex – and not in the traditional way. Elsewhere, though, the sly embellishments of design are balanced neatly between the septic and spectral: Shadow’s immaculate tailoring and pristine white shirt remain unblemished after grisly encounters; the bar where he brawls with a surprisingly tall leprechaun, Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), is conceived as the gaping mouth of a crocodile; and the blood that sloshes over the screen seems less like clotted gore than a fine, decanted pinot noir.

Like Gaiman’s punctilious, unshowy prose, the show takes the oddity of its idea seriously, but not joylessly. Getting people to believe in you, as Mr Wednesday knows, is better achieved with a sly invitation than a blunt command. So far, the gods, like the viewers, should be pleased with this offering.