Posted in: Amazon Studios, Good Omens, TV | Tagged: good omens, michael sheen, neil gaiman, prime video, soho

Good Omens 2: Neil Gaiman Responds to Fan's Soho History In-Joke

While discussing Good Omens 2 on his page, Neil Gaiman responded to a fan's observation involving Aziraphale & the history of London's Soho.

We're all looking forward to Good Omens 2 after the fun first season. London's Soho holds a special place in the hearts of the UK's Science Fiction, Fantasy, and comics community. In Good Omens, people come to Aziraphale's (Michael Sheen) Soho bookshop a lot. And he often tells them they've got the wrong bookshop and directs them to the one they think they're looking for.

As part of his ongoing promotion of Good Omens 2, Neil Gaiman retweeted an observation that the bit in the show where the painfully innocent and unironic Aziraphale says: "oh, I think perhaps you got the wrong bookshop" is a reference to the many times someone came into Aziraphale's bookshop in Soho perhaps looking for a gay sex shop. This is part of Soho's history. In the 70s and 80s, gay sex shops and "adult entertainment" shops in London's Soho got their licenses by getting some legit normal books on their shelves upstairs so they could get licenses to operate as shops while keeping all the adult tapes, DVDs, magazines and equipment or supplies or poppers in the basement.

There was one big store with great bargain books in Brewer Street, Soho, during the 1990s that sold a lot of really good books at reduced and remaindered prices. We bought a bunch of remaindered but brand new Doctor Who, Science Fiction, and television spinoff books for peanuts, and all the (really boring) adult magazines and DVDs were in the basement. That store has since been taken over by Gosh! Comics, the fanciest comics store in London, where celebrities like David Harewood buy Marvel and DC comics for himself and manga for his kids. You can bet that Gosh! Comics also sells Gaiman's comics and graphic novels, including the comics adaptation of Good Omens.

You could say the Good Omens television series is probably doing wonders for tourism in London, especially for Soho.

Good Omens 2 is on Prime Video beginning next month.

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