Gormenghast

I was at first apprehensive to see what were some of my favourite books ever written being made into a film. Upon reading the books, I had always dreamt of adapting this work to the screen myself... though not everything was quite the way I envisioned it, the BBC has done an exemplary job in casting and set design, recreating the askew world of Gormenghast in a fashion that Mervyn Peake himself would have most probably been proud of.

Though the time limitations make for a very accelerated version of the slow, brooding books, and a few liberties are taken with the plot, Gormenghast is a very competent, excellently acted gothic fantasy drama. Though a little too bright & colourful and betraying the BBC's penchant for filmed stage dramas (it seems very much like a play), Gormenghast the miniseries does the brilliant books justice as much as any film could.

WOW! Outstanding in every respect. Original, bold, fresh, topped off by outstanding acting by all, but most notably, Christopher Lee. One of the BBC's FINEST. Setting and costumes are impressive and unique to say the least. Cinematography once again, worth mentioning. Nothing mundane here, all around impressive. Characters, unlike most of the crud we get from Hollywood have some depth, which was more than welcome with me. It's so rare that characters actually capture you for their uniqueness; my personal favotire is Mr. Steerpike. All you have to do to see what I mean by villian with depth is watch this, and then something like Die Another day. This character relies on his witts rather than his muscles. I wanted so much for him to achieve his goal, but then realized...well, you didn't think I would tell you everything did you?? Watch it, a truly remarkable film.

There are few genuinely unique fictional landscapes. Dickens and Wodehouse created their own enclosed worlds, Wodehouse with his own language, as distinct and peculiar as Middle Earth's Elvish. Dickens and Wodehouse called their worlds "London" and "England" but really both were places of fantasy. Nevertheless, Dickens and Wodehouse are recognizable places, however they twist their realities. Even in labelled fantasy literature too much of what passes as a new world is really a recognizable pastiche of our own.

However, there are a few literary works that present fully realized alternate existences: Tolkien's Middle Earth; Herbert's Dune; Peake's Gormenghast; perhaps Donaldson's Mordant. It's difficult to bring these to the screen ("Dune" was unsuccessful, for instance) because reading exercises the imagination and all readers have their own ideas of how the worlds should be presented. One can't please everyone.

"Gormenghast" is a game attempt at Peake's comic, nightmarish world. Gormenghast is the castle of the Earl of Groan, and in the book it seems to stretch forever, through endless corridors and towers. Though the literary Gormenghast is filled with more distinctive characters than can be presented in a miniseries, one gets the oppressive, cavernous emptiness of Gormenghast. That vast emptiness does not come across very well in the series, but one is left with a sense of the show's hollowness.

Some of the performances are remarkable. Christopher Lee, an actor who has often appeared in materials beneath his talents, is wrapping up his peculiar career with roles as Flay in "Gormenghast", Saruman and "Lord of the Rings", and a part in the Star Wars saga; and hopefully these will be the fitting reminders of Lee when his multitudinous Dracula flicks are forgotten. Ian Richardson, while an inspired selection for Lord Groan, is a mixed blessing; while is portrayal is wonderful and he makes the best scene moving (when he and Fuchia are planning their library), when he goes away halfway through the series misses his power and presence. John Sessions, a Peake fan, plays one of the few sympathetic characters in the story with a wonderful pinache. Neve McIntosh is by turns funny and heartbreaking and Fuchia. In small parts, Steven Fry is good as Titus' teacher. Spike Milligan has an infinitesimal role as the headmaster, and while it's nice to see him it's clear he won't be doing much more: Pete and Harry are already gone, and Spike doesn't look good, nor does he contribute much. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers would probably be accepted by Peake as Steerpike, and he plays the role as if his life depended on it. Steerpike, the villain, rises to power over Lord Groan and Gormenghast like the American left: promising everything to everyone; preaching about everyone getting along, then behind the scenes quietly setting one group within the family against the other and raising the general level of paranoia until Steerpike is the only person in Gormenghast they trust.

While the series does try to do justice to Peake, it falters. Most modern British versions of Dickens' works focus on his darker elements and forget that Dickens is very funny. At times Peake's humor is lost. Also, in the books, Gormenghast is not just a cavernous home, it's also a character. It lives and grows. Sometimes one feels that it thinks. In the series the best scenes are always the intimate ones -- like the one between Fuchia and Lord Groan, or Irma's soiree; the big scenes, where Gormenghast should feel alive make it seem less like a growing tree than a hollow one. The scenes that should be sweeping and big fall flat, and one starts pining for Ian Richardson, even in a flashback, to fill the halls of Gormenghast again with his glory.

If you're a Peake fan, it's a must-see and a keeper. If you don't know the trilogy, but enjoyed the series, you can extend Gormenghast and find much more by reading the books. In the end, though, "Gormenghast" is not for every taste, and is recommended for aficionados and not very inviting for the casual viewer, who probably should be exposed to new worlds of the mind like Gormenghast.

This BBC mini-series is actually a combination of the books Titus Groan and Gormenghast. In 4 - 1 hour parts, being from the BBC they're really close to a whole hour as opposed to the usual 45 minute network episodes.

Gormenghast is an ancient kingdom that must be located somewhere in Europe, since it is populated with Europeans. More specifically, it is populated with really odd Europeans, which sounds more like Great Britain. In fact it is a fictional location in which Mervyn Peake has created an extremely ossified culture, technologically stagnant, that indulges itself in numerous obscure rituals that cover almost all routine events, written down in huge books and applied as if their lives depended on it.

The story centers around the Groans, who's male heirs rule as Earls. Titus is set to become the 77th Earl of Groan, and as he matures he sees it as his doom rather than his destiny, and comes to despise Gormenghast.

At first, however, he's just a baby and the story centers on his father and the odd ducks that are his family and servants. Into this mix is added Steerpike, a kitchen boy of huge ambition that finds ways to ingratiate, titillate and extort his way to a much higher position, hardly killing anyone at all to get there. The Groans and Gormenghast in general are so dense and caught up in the minutiae of their lives it takes them years to realize that there's a raccoon in the chicken house, so there's plenty of story to take up a 4 hour mini-series.

I read these two books once upon a time and hardly remember them. I believe the BBC series plays Steerpike a bit more sympathetic than the books did. The trilogy has been compared to LOTR and the Thomas Covenant trilogy, both of which I liked more than Gormenghast. Gormenghast is fiction not fantasy, there are no dragons, orcs or hobbits. The kingdom appears to be mostly medieval with some touches of modernity here and there. The closest thing to monsters are the huge Death Owls.

What makes the mini-series work is a very talented cast that bring their characters to life. They make it a pleasure to watch, if only once. 8/10

The 2 DVD set has a Making Of, Cast interviews, a few unrelated trailers. It is all shot in a peculiar not-quite 4:3 or 16:9 format, at least the way my hardware decoded it to the screen. Video and audio are strictly TV quality, with video colorful if a bit smeared and audio all upfront mono as far as I could tell. The DVDs get a 6/10 for getting it on my screen but not much else.

This looks like being the year of big budget gothic adventure (all featuring Christopher Lee) with Sleepy Hollow packing them in at multiplexes around Britain and The Lord of the Rings trilogy currently shooting in New Zealand - not to mention this lavish mini-series which is one of the biggest fantasy productions ever staged on British TV.

Gormenghast spent five years in production and it seems like all the hard work was worth the wait.

With an impressive cast including Celia Imrie, John Sessions, Warren Mitchell and Jonathan Rhys Myers, the BBC have ensured that Mervyn Peake's classic tale of murder, seduction and tragic events striking the family of a crumbling castle is a faithful version of a literary classic.

At one point, Sting owned the rights to the books and was planning to star in a movie version - he settled for playing Steerpike in an adaptation from 1984.

It's perhaps best that this ended up as a TV drama: The plot and scale of the original material is far too dense to do justice in a two hour movie.

The casting is excellent, the special effects are fine and direction by Andy Wilson is assured.

Well worth a look.