Gormenghast Castle in the BBC miniseries

Gormenghast is a fictional castle of titanic proportions that features prominently in a series of fantasy works penned by Mervyn Peake. Image File history File links Gormenghast_castle. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, sometimes also known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, founded in 1922. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ... // For other meanings see Fantasy (disambiguation) Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ... Mervyn Laurence Peake (July 9, 1911 – November 17, 1968) was a British modernist writer, artist, poet and illustrator. ...

Gormenghast is also commonly used in reference to this series, even though the castle is present for a very small amount of time in Titus Alone. In fact, Peake intended to write a "biography" of protagonist Titus Groan, not the castle's history, so it would make more sense to name the series after him. (An earlier collected edition was entitled The Titus Books). Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Andrew N. Robertson as Titus Titus Groan is the main character of the Gormenghast series. ...

Works in the Series

The cycle consists of three novels, Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959). A novella, Boy in Darkness (1956), shares the setting without specific allusion. Cover design for Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake Titus Groan is the first book in the Gormenghast series of fiction, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Boy in Darkness is a horror novella written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1956 in the anthology Sometime, Never. ...

Peake intended to write a series of books following Titus's life and his relationship with the castle. At least two other books, tentatively titled Titus Awakes and Gormenghast Revisited, were planned, but Peake's health complications and ensuing death prevented him from writing down more than a few rough chapters and ideas for these. Only three pages of Titus Awakes were coherently written, and these appear in the Overlook Press omnibus edition of the main novels (ISBN 0-87951-628-3). Titus Awakes was to have been a novel written by Mervyn Peake. ... An omnibus is a book or video collecting two or more previous works by the same author or director. ...

Dramatic adaptations

In 1984, BBC Radio 4 broadcast two 90-minute plays based on Titus Groan and Gormenghast, adapted by Brian Sibley and starring Sting as Steerpike and Freddie Jones as the Artist (narrator). A slightly abridged compilation of the two, running to 160 minutes, and entitled Titus Groan of Gormenghast, was broadcast on Christmas Day, 1992. BBC 7 repeated the original versions on 21 and 28 September 2003. 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Cover design for Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake Titus Groan is the first book in the Gormenghast series of fiction, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... Brian Sibley is a British writer. ... Sting in Budapest, 2000 Gordon Matthew Sumner, CBE (born October 2, 1951), usually known by his stage name Sting, is an English musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. ... Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Gormenghast Steerpike is a character in Mervyn Peakes novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. ... Freddie Jones (born September 12, 1927) is a British character actor. ... Joseph and Mary with baby Jesus, at the first Christmas Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a holiday in the Christian calendar, usually observed on December 25, which celebrates the birth of Jesus. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... BBC 7 is a digital radio station broadcasting comedy, drama, and childrens programming 24 hours a day. ... (Redirected from 21 September) September 21 is the 264th day of the year (265th in leap years). ... September 28 is the 271st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (272nd in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In 2000, the BBC and the PBS station WGBH of Boston produced a miniseries, titled Gormenghast, based on the first two books of the trilogy. This article is about the year 2000. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC, sometimes also known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, founded in 1922. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... WGBH is an established public television and public radio broadcast service located in Boston, Massachusetts. ... Boston is a town and small port c. ... The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...

The 30-minute TV short film A Boy In Darkness (also made in 2000 and adapted from Peake's short story Boy in Darkness) was the first production from the BBC Drama Lab. It was set in a 'virtual' computer-generated world created by young computer game designers, and starred Jack Ryder (from EastEnders) as Titus, with Terry Jones (Monty Python's Flying Circus) narrating. This article is about the year 2000. ... Boy in Darkness is a horror novella written by Mervyn Peake and first published in 1956 in the anthology Sometime, Never. ... Jack as Jamie Mitchell in EastEnders. ... EastEnders is a popular BBC television soap opera, first broadcast on 19 February 1985. ... Terry Jones Terence Graham Parry Jones (born February 1, 1942) is a British comedian and writer. ... Monty Pythons Flying Circus (also known as Flying Circus, MPFC or just Monty Python during the fourth season) was a popular, surreal BBC sketch comedy show from Monty Python, and the groups initial claim to fame. ...

A minimalist stage version of Gormenghast was adapted by John Constable and directed by David Glass. It has toured theatres in the UK during 2006.

Irmin Schmidt, founder of seminal German 'Krautrock' group Can has written an opera called Gormenghast, based on the novels, and a number of early songs by New Zealand rock group Split Enz were inspired by Peake's work, in addition to 'The Drowning Man' by The Cure. Irmin Schmidt (born May 29, 1937) is a keyboard player probably best known as a member of Can. ... Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental bands who appeared in Germany in the early 1970s. ... Can was an experimental rock group founded in Germany in 1968. ... Split Enz was a successful New Zealand band during the late 1970s and early 1980s featuring brothers Tim Finn and Neil Finn. ...

Genre and Style

The series is usually described as a fantasy work. However, there is no magic and no intelligent races other than humans, as is usual in high fantasy such as The Lord of the Rings. Another valid classification would be to place Gormenghast in the genre of the fantastic, with marked gothic and surrealist influences. // For other meanings see Fantasy (disambiguation) Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ... Magic(k) or sorcery are terms referring to the alleged influencing of events and physical phenomena by supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means. ... High fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy fiction that is set in invented or parallel worlds. ... Cover design for the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel by the British author J. R. R. Tolkien, and one of the most widely read books in human history. ... The Fantastic is a literary genre of writing or art which intrudes fantasy elements into a story (or picture) that is basically representational or real-feeling. ... Strawberry Hill, an English villa in the Gothic revival style, built by seminal Gothic writer Horace Walpole The gothic novel was a literary genre that belonged to Romanticism and began in the United Kingdom with The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole. ... Kay Sage. ...

Gormenghast has a much less focused plot than is usual for most novels. Though Titus and Steerpike are often considered the main characters, they share the narrative with many of the other denizens of the castle.

Gormenghast Castle

Gormenghast Castle is the setting for the first two books in the series, Titus Groan and Gormenghast. It incorporates many of the elements of both mediæval castles and Regency period stately homes, though in practice it operates like a small city-state. It has its own government, a Byzantine system of laws and rituals, a rigid class system, and is seemingly self-sufficient. The castle is huge, giving the impression more of a semi-deserted city than a single structure. A character climbing across one of the roofs sees it as an unending and monumentally complex roofscape. In the second book a flood drowns the lowest levels of the castle and turns the upper regions into stone islands, yet still there is accomodation for the regular inhabitants and an influx of refugees, with very substantial areas still empty. It is impractical to guess at even an approximate layout. Most of the castle seems to be bordered by a vast curtain wall separating it from the shanty-town of the Bright Carvers, while other regions (such as the area around the library) appear to be unwalled and overlook woodland. The castle is divided into four wings named after the cardinal points, with at least one wing possessing it's own unique fauna. The tallest point of the castle is the forbidding, bat-infested Tower of Flints. Among the countless buildings and rooms are libraries, a huge kitchen (eighteen men are required just to scrub the walls), outer walls, an art gallery (specifically carvings), a dining hall, a lake and a school. Vast areas of the castle are abandoned. Cover design for Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake Titus Groan is the first book in the Gormenghast series of fiction, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... The Byzantine Empire acquired a negative reputation among historians of the 18th and 19th century not only for the complexity of the organization of its ministries and the elaborateness of its court ceremonies (from this came the term still in modern use, Byzantine, often used pejoratively to describe any work... Social class describes the relationships between people in hierarchical societies or cultures. ...

Ritual plays a large part in the daily life of all characters in the castle, most of all the Earl of Gormenghast, whose days are largely spent adhering to the obscure and esoteric tenets of Gormenghast tradition. Titus' dread and rebellion against the iron letter of Gormenghast Law becomes one of the main themes in the series leading to his preoccupation with freedom.

The castle has become synonymous with large, sprawling buildings and has been used as a reference point in other works of fiction.

Story

Titus Groan

The story follows the somewhat bizarre inhabitants of Gormenghast Castle, and chronicles the rise to power of Steerpike, a scheming kitchen boy, in the decaying monarchy of the house of Groan. The eponymous Titus is only an infant in this novel, and plays a minor role. Cover design for Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake Titus Groan is the first book in the Gormenghast series of fiction, written by Mervyn Peake. ... Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Gormenghast Steerpike is a character in Mervyn Peakes novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. ... An eponym is the name of a person, whether real or fictitious, which has (or is thought to have) given rise to the name of a particular place, tribe, discovery or other item. ...

Gormenghast

The second book follows Titus from the age of seven to seventeen. As the 77th earl and lord of Gormenghast, he dreads the life of pre-ordained ritual that stretches before him. Steerpike continues his rise to power, but is eventually unmasked as a traitor and murderer. In a watery duel with Titus, Steerpike is killed, leaving the way clear for Titus to reign. However, Titus has other ideas and flees the castle for the wider world beyond Gormenghast Mountain. Gormenghast is a novel by Mervyn Peake, and is the second book in his Gormenghast Series of novels (sometimes known as The Titus Books). ... A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value, which is prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of sex A ritual may be performed at regular intervals, or on specific occasions, or at the discretion of individuals or communities. ...

Titus Alone

The story follows Titus as he travels far from Gormenghast and finds a futuristic world of industrialists and advanced technology (in some ways anticipating the steampunk genre). This novel is more randomly plotted than its two predecessors, without a strong lead character or a fixed setting. It remained unfinished at the time of Peake's death, and the skeletal published version is compiled by the editor Langdon Jones from Peake's early draughts. Titus Alone is the third book in the Gormenghast Series/Titus Books, written by Mervyn Peake. ... A rocket lands on the moon in Le Voyage dans la Lune, the film adaptation of Jules Vernes From the Earth to the Moon. ...

Inhabitants of Gormenghast

Peake populated his imaginary castle with a large cast of dickensian characters. These include:

The ruling family

Titus Groan: The main character of the series, and heir to the Earldom of Gormenghast. He succeeds to the title while still a child, but as he grows older, he develops ambivalent feelings toward his home. He is torn between pride in his lineage and the desire to escape from the castle and its traditions. Andrew N. Robertson as Titus Titus Groan is the main character of the Gormenghast series. ...

Lord Sepulchrave: Titus's father. He is a melancholy man who feels shackled by his duties as Earl, although he never questions them. His only escape is reading. However, when the castle's Library burns down, he is driven insane and comes to believe that he is one of the death-owls that live in the abandoned Tower of Flints.

The Countess Gertrude: Titus's mother. An obese woman with dark red hair, she pays no attention to her family or the rest of Gormenghast. Instead, she spends her time locked away in her bedroom, in the company of a legion of cats and birds, the only things toward which she shows affection. However, once given the chance to use her intelligence she turns out to be one of the cleverest people in the castle, when (along with Flay and the doctor) she recognizes and investigates the worrying changes transpiring in Gormenghast.

Fuchsia: Titus's sister. At times snobbish, annoying, and self-absorbed, she can also be extremely warm and caring. At first, she resents Titus, but soon develops a deep bond with him. Of all Titus's family, she is the one he loves most. Fuchsia Groan is the fictional daughter of Sepulchrave, the 76th Earl of Groan, a character in Mervyn Peakes Titus Groan and Gormenghast. ...

Cora and Clarice Groan: Titus's aunts, a pair of identical twins. Both suffered from spasms in their youth, so the left sides of their bodies are paralyzed. They have virtually the same personalities and neither of them is very intelligent -- they are perhaps even mentally impaired -- although Cora is slightly cleverer than Clarice. Both crave political power and dislike Gertrude, whom they believe robbed them of their rightful place in the hierarchy of Gormenghast. Their mindless ambition and thirst for revenge lead them to become Steerpike's pawns. Mental retardation (also called mental handicap[1] and, as defined by the UK Mental Health Act 1983, mental impairment and severe mental impairment[2]) is a term for a pattern of persistently slow learning of basic motor and language skills (milestones) during childhood, and a significantly below-normal global intellectual...

Other major characters

Steerpike: A youthful outsider, beginning as a kitchen boy, who worms his way into the hierarchy of Gormenghast for his own personal gain. Ruthlessly murderous, with a Machiavellian mind and a talent for manipulation, he can appear charming and sometimes even noble. He has natural personal enmity with Titus. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Steerpike in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Gormenghast Steerpike is a character in Mervyn Peakes novels Titus Groan and Gormenghast. ... Detail of the portrait of Machiavelli, ca 1500, in the robes of a Florentine public official Niccolò Machiavelli (May 3, 1469—June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher during the Renaissance. ...

Flay: Lord Sepulchrave's personal servant, who believes in strictly holding to the rules of Gormenghast. Nevertheless, he is not completely hard-hearted and cares a great deal for Titus and Fuchsia. He is eventually exiled from Gormenghast for throwing one of the Countess's cats at Steerpike. Illustration of Mr. ...

Dr. Alfred Prunesquallor: The castle's resident physician. He is an eccentric individual with a high-pitched laugh and a grandiose wit which he uses on the castle's less intelligent inhabitants. Despite his acid tongue, he is an extremely kind and caring man who also is greatly fond of Fuchsia and Titus. (In a few places in the text, Dr. Prunesquallor is given the first name of Bernard, but this was an error by Peake.)

Irma Prunesquallor: Doctor Prunesquallor's sister. Though she is anything but pretty, she is considerably vain. She desperately desires to be admired and loved by men.

Abiatha Swelter: The fat, sadistic head chef of Gormenghast. His profound hatred for Flay leads him to attempt murder. This article or section needs additional references or sources. ...

Nannie Slagg: An ancient dwarf who serves as the nurse for infant Titus and Fuchsia before him. She is somewhat senile and has an inferiority complex.

Sourdust: The Master of Ritual when the series begins. He is the one who coordinates the various arcane rituals that make up daily life in Gormenghast. After his death, his position is taken up by his son Barquentine.

Barquentine: Follows his father into the role of Master of Ritual. He is lame in one leg, hideous, and unbelieveably dirty. He is a consummate misanthrope who only cares for the laws and traditions of Gormenghast. He makes the grievous error of allowing Steerpike to become his assistant. Barquentine is a character in books 1 and 2 of the Gormenghast trilogy. ...

Bellgrove: One of Titus's teachers, who eventually ascends to Headmaster of Gormenghast. In many respects, he is the standard absent-minded professor who falls asleep during his own class and plays with marbles. However, deep inside him there is a certain element of dignity and nobility. He begins a rather unusual romance with Irma Prunesquallor.

Keda: One of the Outer Dwellers who lives just outside the walls of Gormenghast. She is chosen to be Titus's wet nurse, but eventually leaves this position. She has two lovers who fight a duel and both die for her, but not before one of them impregnates her. Eventually she kills herself.

Thing: The daughter of Keda. Due to her illegitimacy she is an outcast who becomes a feral child living in the wilderness surrounding Gormenghast. Believing that she is in every way the opposite of Gormenghast, Titus becomes infatuated with her. A feral child (feral, ie. ...

Minor characters

Rottcodd: The curator of the Hall of Bright Carvings and the first character introduced in the series. Rottcodd lives the life of a recluse in the castle, rarely speaking to anyone and, when not dusting the statues at exactly seven o' clock, is usually sleeping in his hammock by the windowside.

Pentecost: Pentecost was one of the Outer Dwellers once, but worked himself up to become the head gardener of the palace. He is always busy tending the palace orchards and filling vases with fresh water and bright flowers.

The Poet: Known only by his professional name, the Poet holds a relatively important function of ritual in the castle. He is described as having a wedge-shaped head and a voice "as strange and deep as a lugubrious ocean". After Steerpike's death, he is hastily appointed as the new Master of Rituals.

Rantel & Braigon: Keda's lovers, whose rivalry eventually leads to their death in a nighttime duel.

External links

• Homepage of the miniseries at PBS.org
• Homepage of the BBC mini-series
• Gormenghast: A Fantasy Opera, written by Irmin Schmidt
• The Mervyn Peake FAQ, which clarifies the inconsistency in Prunesquallor's given name.
• Gormenghast series listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database