Gormenghast (2000– ) 7.4
A villain threatens the rise of a new earl in an ancient kingdom. |
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Gormenghast (2000– ) 7.4
A villain threatens the rise of a new earl in an ancient kingdom. |
|
| 0Share... |
| Series cast summary: | |||
| Celia Imrie | ... |
Lady Gertrude
(4 episodes, 2000)
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| Christopher Lee | ... |
Flay
(4 episodes, 2000)
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| Warren Mitchell | ... |
Barquentine
(4 episodes, 2000)
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Neve McIntosh | ... |
Lady Fuchsia
(4 episodes, 2000)
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| Jonathan Rhys Meyers | ... |
Steerpike
(4 episodes, 2000)
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| John Sessions | ... |
Dr. Prunesquallor
(4 episodes, 2000)
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| Fiona Shaw | ... |
Irma Prunesquallor
(4 episodes, 2000)
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June Brown | ... |
Nannie Slagg
(3 episodes, 2000)
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| Lynsey Baxter | ... |
Cora Groan
(3 episodes, 2000)
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| Zoë Wanamaker | ... |
Clarice Groan
(3 episodes, 2000)
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George Antoni | ... |
Bookman
(3 episodes, 2000)
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Sean Hughes | ... |
Poet
(3 episodes, 2000)
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| Stephen Fry | ... |
Professor Bellgrove
(2 episodes, 2000)
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| Richard Griffiths | ... |
Swelter
(2 episodes, 2000)
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| Ian Richardson | ... |
Lord Groan
(2 episodes, 2000)
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Windsor Davies | ... |
Rottcodd
(2 episodes, 2000)
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| Olga Sosnovska | ... |
Keda
(2 episodes, 2000)
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| Eric Sykes | ... |
Mollocks
(2 episodes, 2000)
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Gormenghast is an ancient city-state which primarily consists of a rambling and crumbling castle. The narrative, based on the first two of the three Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake, begins with the birth of a son, Titus, to the 76th Earl, Sepulchrave Groan, and Countess Gertrude. This mismatched pair (he'd prefer the melancholy privacy of his library; she'd prefer the company of her menagerie of cats and birds) also have a teenaged daughter, Fuchsia, who resents her new brother but comes to love him dearly. Simultaneously, a young kitchen apprentice, Steerpike, takes advantage of an altercation between head cook Swelter and the Earl's manservant, Mr. Flay, and escapes from the kitchens. Gormenghast is rigidly feudal in structure, but Steerpike has ambitions. He befriends the imaginative, yearning Fuchsia, and through her becomes apprenticed to the castle physician, Dr. Prunesquallor, who lives with his man-hunting sister Irma. This position allows Steerpike to work his way into the... Written by G.M. Baxter
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.