Monthly column on the arts: Gormenghast reaches TV
Regarded by many as a triumph and by many more as a big-budget disaster, BBC2's adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast was never going to please everybody. Peake's trilogy has always been an acquired taste; hardly ever out of print, it has nevertheless been very much a cult. Some who love it most are hopping mad that it was televised, because now everybody will be reading it.
David Porter
The TV series featured over 100 sets, using the resources of computerised illusions and exhaustive research. The biggest problem was how to portray Gormenghast itself - the rambling castle-township, dominated by inexorable rules and dead tradition, into which Titus, the 77th Earl of Groan is born and from whose depths the rebellious scullery slave Steerpike rises to threaten Gormenghast in its entirety.