‘Fear is good’: my scary subterranean journey into Underland, the film of Robert Macfarlane’s dazzling book

As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, s...

By Stuart Jeffries