AND THE WINNER IS...

I am thrilled that at last night's inaugural BBC Audio Drama Awards, I picked up the award for Best Adaptation for The History of Titus Groan, my serialisation of Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' novels.

The awards were presented by David Tennant at a ceremony held in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House and here I am clutching it, shortly after the event...


Although Titus was unsuccessful the other two categories for which it was nominated (Best Use of Sound in a Audio Drama and Best Supporting Actor for Carl Prekopp who played Steerpike), the citation for the Adaptation Award praised all aspects of the production:

The judges described this as "a brilliant piece of radio drama. It was a hugely ambitious undertaking to adapt the darkly comic, surreal and visual world of Mervyn Peake's novels for sound and this adaptation is faithful to both the spirit and the landscape of the originals.

The almost Dickensian characters (wonderfully realised by an outstanding cast), the exquisite language and a rich and original soundscape works for both Peake aficionados and new listeners."

The award is engraved with a profile of Prospero taken from Eric Gill's famous statue, 'Prospero and Ariel' which has stood above the front doors to Broadcasting House for the past 80 years.


"The isle is full of noises..." and I've just won an award for adding to them!!


Post-Script on 2 February 2012:

It has been revealed that The History of Titus Groan was runner-up in the Best Use of Sound category in Sunday's Audio Drama Awards and the citation is a credit to the work of Peter Ringrose and his team of Studio Mangers: Anne Bunting, Martha Littlehailes, Jenni Burnett, Mike Etherden, and Alison Craig and the series' Composer Roger Goula:

A sumptuous listen in which the sound montage draws you into the location and psychological aspects of the drama, from the personal to the phantasmagorical, rendering each ambiance in almost forensic detail and beautifully capturing the spirit of the Gormenghast novels.

Images: BS by David Weeks; 'Prospero and Ariel' from R/DV/RS's Photostream

TITUS NOMINATED

Last autumn, the BBC announced that it was launching an annual Audio Awards ceremony and the short-listed nominees for the first of these events have just been announced.

I am thrilled to find that The History of Titus Groan, my six-part serialisation of the novels of Mervyn Peake has been nominated in three categories:

Best Supporting Actor/Actress in an Audio Drama for Carl Prekopp who played Steerpike

Best Use of Sound in an Audio Drama for Producers David Hunter, Gemma Jenkins and Jeremy Mortimer

and

Best Adaptation for Me!


The winners will be announced at a ceremony in the BBC Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House on Sunday 29 January, when the awards will be presented by David Tennant.

The competition in all three categories is very strong, but, whatever the outcome, it is very satisfying indeed to have had a piece of my work nominated - and the only one in the competition to have receive three nominations.

I'm also delighted that it led to my stumbling on the following review by Bella Todd from Time Out, which I missed when it first appeared:

Dark, angular and haunting, the portraits Mervyn Peake sketched for his Gormenghast series were integral to the evocation of a fantasy kingdom hewn from stone. And they’re given a presence in Brian Sibley’s star-studded BBC radio dramatisation of all four books The History of Titus Groan. In an idea borrowed from Titus Awakes, the recently discovered ‘final novel’ written from fragments of a draft by Peake’s widow Maeve Gilmore, this epic radio play is framed by a meeting between the hero, Titus Groan (Luke Treadaway), reluctant Earl of Gormenghast, and ‘The Artist’ (a world-weary David Warner). He welcomes his protagonist into a canvas-filled studio and describes drawing as ‘a way of holding back some fleeting, line, rhythm, mood or shape from the blink of oblivion’. Moving and sensual as well as funny and grotesque, this is perfect listening for Peake’s centenary year.

All six hours of The History of Titus Groan can be downloaded here – and for just £7.86!

TITUS REPRISED

As if you hadn't read enough about my recent radio dramatisations, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, here I am mentioning it again, although only because those nice people at BBC Radio4Extra are repeating it in two three-hour chunks today and tomorrow as part of a pre-Halloween Gothic weekend.

I would argue that Peake isn't really Gothic, but I am, nevertheless, intrigued to know how it plays at length and with an overnight pause half-way through the second book...

Anyway, here's the schedule of broadcasts...


The first episode is preceded (at 19:30 tonight) by the superb documentary, 100 Years of Mervyn Peake, presented by Sebastian Peake with contributions from his siblings, Fabian and Clare as well as the wonderful Joanna Harris and myself.

If you're looking for Radio4Extra (formerly known as Radio 7), this is where you can find it:
Frequency DAB: 12B / Freeview: 708 / Freesat: 708 / Sky: 0131 / Virgin Media: 910 / TalkTalk TV: 633 / UPC Ireland: 929

HISTORY FOR KEEPS

If you enjoyed my recent cycle of radio plays, The History of Titus Groan, based on the books by Mervyn Peake and would like to own it for keeps – or if you missed any or all of the six one-hour episodes – you may like to know that it is now available for purchase and download from AudibleGo – and for just £6.74!

The production features a stellar cast headed by Miranda Richardson, Paul Rhys, James Fleet, Tamsin Greig, William Gaunt and Carl Prekopp with David Warner as the Artist and Luke Treadaway as Titus Groan, 77th Earl of Gormenghast.

ORDER HERE!

TITUS FUGIT

Time is running out! According to the BBC iPlayer, all six episodes of The History of Titus Groan (see last post below) will vanish from the audio bookshelf at 4:02PM Sun, 21 Aug 2011. Why wait that long?!

THE END OF HISTORY

With the repeat of 'Titus Alive', the final episode of my radio Classic Serial, The History of Titus Groan tomorrow, Saturday (BBC Radio 4 at 21:00) my most ambitious project for very many years will come to an end.

If you have missed any or all of this cycle of plays based on the books by Mervyn Peake and featuring a cast headed by David Warner, Luke Treadaway, Miranda Richardson, James Fleet and Carl Prekopp, you've still got a day in which to catch up on any or all of the six episodes on the BBC iPlayer.



It's been a week of mixed fortunes as two national radio critics passed judgment on the series. First was Gillian Reynolds in The Daily Telegraph.

Back in 2004, reviewing my serialisation of The Pilgrim's Progress, Ms Reynolds had written: "Sibley dramatised The Lord of the Rings, did excellent versions of C S Lewis's Narnia stories, got Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast better than BBC TV (and for two ounces of that other version's megaton budget), and all for Radio 4..."

Now, however, she wrote:

Titus Groan, the first Radio 4 Classic Serial in ages to be given six parts, ended on Sunday. I have listened to every episode, admiring the acting, Brian Sibley’s adaptation of a complex work, the pace of Jeremy Mortimer’s direction. I still couldn’t understand what was going on. At all. The minute I thought I had, off it would go again into another dimension of fear, temptation, betrayal, each so vivid it flooded the mind’s eye, all adding into a dream I didn’t want to enter. If anyone can offer me the key into this version, pray tell. Just don’t say “the book”. If the book is the key, what’s the point of a radio version?

Hmmmm...

Well, yes, I admit I was momentarily cast down, but then came along the wonderful Elisabeth Mahoney in The Guardian and gave me one of the most fantastic reviews I have ever received:

In 1985, Brian Sibley adapted Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan and Gormenghast for Radio 4. I had only recently discovered both Peake and Radio 4, but I wasn't sure I wanted them to meet. Peake's extraordinary writing it felt to me then, was all about a solitary, personal flight of imagination where the reader makes the pictures to match the soaring, peculiar prose. Someone else's version would surely feel like an intrusion.

In fact, it was brilliant, so much so that I quite got the jitters on hearing that Sibley was tackling Peake again. Instead of worrying about my images while reading Peake being replaced by radio ones, I was concerned about the two radio ones competing. And it was a hugely ambitious project: Peake's three novels plus the concluding volume by Peake's wife, Maeve Gilmore, rediscovered last year, made into six hours of Classic Serial.

The terrific new adaptation ended at the weekend (but the whole series can be heard online until Saturday), and shows just what radio drama can do in the right hands. It captured every brilliant thing about Peake: the glorious writing; the strangeness; the collision of voices and realities; the satire of now – whenever now is as you read or listen – and the beautiful, vivid conjuring of fragments of the past.

And actually, it added to the brilliance, which in Peake's case takes some doing. Roger Goula's music and Peter Ringrose's sound production are outstanding, as memorable and transporting as the exquisite words. Luke Treadaway, as Titus, has the exact voice Titus always had as I read, while David Warner as The Artist has just the right weary omnipotence yet glittering turn of phrase, drawing you into scenes; very movingly indeed in the last moments with Titus.

I listened to these alongside whatever each weekend presented (lashing rain, allotment duties, coastal walk) and they were a huge treat. With really good writing, and an exceptional adaptation such as this, it does rather occlude everything else.

I smiled and, in dark realm of Gormenghast – unlikely as it may seem – the sun came out, birds sang, little children laughed and flowers blossomed!

Time is also running out to catch the last in the current series of Quote... Unquote... in which Nigel Rees puts questions on quotations to Shealagh Fogarty, Ardel O'Hanlon, Martin Jarvis and Moi! There's two days left to listin in on BBC iPlayer.

Images: The Estate of Mervyn Peake

FULLY AWAKE

A copy of the American copy of Maeve Gilmore's Titus Awakes arrives in time for the final episode of The History of Titus Groan (Radio 4, today at 15:00) which brings to a resolution the the double-narrator device that I used in the series and which was inspired by a highly personal episode in Maeve's book.

How and why did it happen that American publishers still manage to market elegantly produced books while, by comparison, their British counterparts look cheap and tawdry?

In the UK you can only get Titus Awakes as a dull-looking paperback; American readers have a hardback printed on quality paper with untrimmed page-edges and a dramatic Peake-illustrated dust-jacket...

Oh, yes, and I get my name on the cover, too!

Anyway back to the radio series: we have been wonderfully feted by the press including the Radio Times which, in its current issue, lists the concluding installment of the serial both in its PICK OF THE WEEK round-up at the front of the magazine and in the MISSED IT? section at the back ("Catch up on the best of recent TV & radio") where it is described as a RADIO GEM:

A triumphant sprawl of a dramatisation , celebrating 100 years since the birth of acute English fantasy novelist Mervyn Peake... Lavishly mounted and delivered with relish by a fine, fine cast including David Warner, Tamsin Greig, Miranda Richardson and Luke Treadaway, the series is available in full on iPlayer, ready to be binged on.

And, finally on this self-aggrandising topic, when you hear a poor unfortunate soul being subjected to some fiendish experiment in the Scientist's 'factory', the agonized scream you hear is a chilling Hitchcockian cameo by Yourstruly – and to prove it, here I am mid-scream...

Photo: Islay Bell-Webb

HISTORY FINALS

If you missed, 'Titus Abroad', the fifth part of my play cycle, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, you can catch it tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00.

And you can hear Part 6, 'Titus Alive', also on Radio 4, tomorrow, Sunday 14 August, at 15:00.

In the sixth and final play, Titus is entranced by the beautiful but manipulative Cheeta, played by Morvern Christie..

Falling foul of her machinations, he finds himself – can it possibly be? – back in Gormenghast...

My Titus play cycle concludes with episodes drawn from Titus Awakes, a fourth 'Gormenghast' novel written by Mervyn Peake's widow, the late Maeve Gilmore, and recently published with an introduction by myself. In this new material, Titus encounters an Artist (David Warner) and discovers his destiny...

All of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will remain accessible via the BBC iPlayer until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama to relive at your leisure.

And (if you're not Sibleyed-out) you can stay tuned to BBC Radio 4 for the repeat of my second appearance on Nigel Ree's much-loved panel-game, Quote... Unquote... at 23:00.

Photos: Islay Bell-Webb

COMING FIFTH IN HISTORY

If you missed, 'Titus Departs', the fourth part of my play cycle, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, you can catch it tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00.

And you can hear Part 5, 'Titus Abroad', also on Radio 4, tomorrow, Sunday 7 August, at 15:00.

Having deserted his ancestral home, Titus finds himself in an alien world with many enemies, but fortunately a couple of caring friends: the eccentric Muzzlehatch and loving Juno, played by Gerard Murphy and Maureen Beattie...

It was an unexpected delight to work with Gerard who thirty years ago this year (in what was his first ever radio role and in the very same BBC studio) narrated my dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings!

You can read my thoughts on the challenge of taking Titus out of the crumbling confines of Gormenghast into the wider world on the BBC Radio 4 blog.

All of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will remain accessible via the BBC iPlayer until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama.

Photo: Islay Bell-Webb

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

If you missed, 'Titus Discovers', the third part of my play cycle, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, you can catch it tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00.

And you can hear Part 4, 'Titus Departs', also on Radio 4, tomorrow, Sunday 31 July, at 15:00, described in the latest issue of Radio Times as: "An absolute triumph."

Here's another snap from the recording session with Luke Treadaway and Hugo Docking (left and right as grown up and young Titus) and David Warner who plays the Artist.

Instead of saying "Cheese!", the photographer asked us to say "Gormenghast!" which explains why three of us have rather strange expressions. Luke, however, was too smart to get caught like that!

Among the events that are chronicled in the fourth play tomorrow are the developments in the brother sister relationships between Titus and Fuchsia played by Olivia Hallinan...

There is also a growing awareness of Steerpike's perfidy by Titus' mother, the Countess Gertrude, and Doctor Alfred Prunesquallor, played by Miranda Richardson and James Fleet...

And, lightening the mood, there are the comic events surrounding the courtship and marriage of Miss Irma Prunesquallor and Professor Bellgrove, played by Tamsin Greig and William Gaunt...

All of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will remain accessible via the BBC iPlayer until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama.

Photos: David Hunter and Islay Bell-Webb

STAGECRAFTED

Just read Moira Petty's review of The History of Titus Groan in last week's The Stage:

The spare beauty of the Shipping Forecast; the Today Programme, especially when things get tetchy; the vicarious joys of mud, pricey strawberries and roving cameras fingering those taking time off work at Glastonbury and Wimbledon; the vast commitment to drama on radio - these are just some of the reasons I’m happy to pay the licence fee when the reminder arrives.

Now add to that list a sublime classic serial from R4. The History of Titus Groan, unfolding with luxurious detail yet imbued with a hypnotic narrative pace like a Gothic road movie, had the unmistakable stamp of excellence from the outset.

Producer Jeremy Mortimer, who directs alongside David Hunter and Gemma Jenkins, has achieved a coup in including the just-published fourth Gormenghast novel, Titus Awakes, in the adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s three previous mid-20th century classics. That Peake only wrote a few hundred words of the final volume, which was then finished by his widow Maeve Gilmore after his death in 1968, has disappointed book reviewers who have generally declared it flat and lacking his virtuoso talents.

Brian Sibley’s six-hour radio adaptation has neatly circumvented potential problems by beginning the epic where the new book ends. Titus, born heir to the Earl of Groan at Gormenghast Castle and the only one of his family to break free of its clammy hold, rows to an island where he meets an artist, clearly sometime Sark resident Peake himself - as gifted a painter and illustrator as he was a writer. The story then segues into Titus’ birth, a scene of exquisite comedy balanced with solemnity, and we are firmly back in true Peake territory.

Peake is everywhere at the moment as the centenary of his birth is marked, but it is my contention that many of those who have his trilogy on their bookshelves have failed to read it. This production does it the best possible service, conjuring incomparable atmosphere, assisted by Roger Goula’s ceremonial yet playful score and parading a range of characters the like of which you find only in Dickens, while preserving many of Peake’s indelible descriptions. The servant Flay (Adrian Scarborough) was ‘a statue of chiselled wood’. The Earl’s twin sisters (Fenella Woolgar and Claudie Blakley twittering in hilarious unison) had rather blank visages: ‘preliminary layouts for faces’.

The cast is a heady delight. Paul Rhys, as the Earl, has a wonderful languour, while Miranda Richardson is regal, dismissive and fabulous, surrounded by her birds and white cats. James Fleet’s Dr Prunesquallor is scholarly but unconfident, a dribble of mirthless cackling following his pronouncements. He calls Steerpike (Carl Prekopp), the boy who escapes the hell of the kitchen, his ‘diabolically clever little monster’, making me wonder if Lady Gaga is a Gormenghast fan. This serial will swell Peake’s followers and I intend to return to it here and the many cast members I have not had space to mention...

TITUS TIMES

The Radio Times are still making up for their earlier lack of coverage of The History of Titus Groan with wonderful, praise-laden coverage of the kind of which writer's dreams are made.

Here's their latest preview for this afternoon's broadcast on Radio 4 at 15:00...

In the third play, Titus – no longer an infant but now ten years old – is beginning to discover for himself the strange secrets of his ancestral home of Gormenghast.

The young Titus is played by Hugo Docking, seen here (right) with Luke Treadaway who plays the grown-up Titus and narrator of his history...

We also follow the continued rise of Steerpike, played by Carl Prekopp, as (seen below) he arranges for the removal of the Gerard McDermott's Master of Ritual, Barquentine...

All of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will remain accessible via the BBC iPlayer until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama for limitless listening!

The Radio Times artwork of Steerpike is by the exciting illustrator, Kevin Hauff who writes of his picture:

...A gift of a project. I thought it best to concentrate on Steerpike and his murderous intent. For me, he's by far the most interesting character in the book(s) as he's so calculating and unrelentingly evil.

A true villain in the best theatrical sense. His ambition to be part of the castle life and hierarchy is all consuming and I thought it would be interesting to depict him overlapping into the walls of Gormenghast itself...

Read Kevin's full blog-post, here and be sure to check out his portfolios of illustrations on his web-site

And, if you haven't stumbled across it yet, here I am enthusing about radio drama...

Images: Art by Kevin Hauff, © 2011; Photos: Islay Bell-Webb

HISTORY NOTES

'Titus Discovers', the third play in my The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, will be broadcast, on Radio 4, tomorrow, Sunday 24 July, at 15:00.

And if you missed the second part, 'Titus Inherits', you can catch it again tonight on Radio 4 at 21:00.

And two hours later (if you're still awake!) you can hear. a repeat of the panel game Quote... Unquote... again on Radio 4 at 23:00.

Nigel Rees is in the chair and my fellow contestants are Shelagh Fogarty, Ardel O'Hanlon and Martin Jarvis, but no prizes for guessing which of us quoted American New Yorker humorist, Robert Benchley, who, on visiting Venice for the first time, cabled home: STREETS FLOODED. PLEASE ADVISE!

Image: Brian Sibley, © 2010. You'll find more of our photos of this most beguiling city in our flickr collection Visions of Venice

FROM THE 'GROANIAD'

In today's Guardian, Sarah Crown writes in praise of Radio 4's 'Classic Serial':

Sunday afternoons on the sainted R4 are a booklover's pleasure garden. From 3 o'clock to 4, I listened to the second instalment of their classic serial, The History of Titus Groan, and was reminded of just how rich and alarming Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy is – I haven't read the books since my late teens, but this fine adaptation brought everything – Steerpike's chilly treachery, Flay's cracking knee-joints, the pitiful horror of Sepulchrave's descent into madness after his precious library is burnt – pouring back...

GROANING ON

Here I am holding forth on the radio history of Titus Groan.

To save you sending corrections: Mervyn Peake's radio play was in 1956 and mine in 1984. Otherwise it's pretty accurate!

Part Two, 'Titus Inherits', airs on BBC Radio 4 at 15:00 this afternoon.

HISTORY LESSON

If you missed 'Titus Arrives' the first part of my play cycle, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, you can catch it tonight on BBC Radio 4 at 21:00.

And you can hear Part 2, 'Titus Inherits', also on Radio 4, tomorrow, Sunday 17 July, at 15:00.

From the recording session of the second play, here are Claudie Blakeley and Fenella Woolgar as their Ladyships Cora and Clarice Groan being manipulated by the ruthlessly ambitious Steerpike, played by Carl Prekopp...

All of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will remain accessible via the BBC iPlayer until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama for your future enjoyment!

Photo: Islay Bell-Webb

HIGH PEAKES

There have been lots of great comments about The History of Titus Groan on Facebook and Twitter and, despite the dearth of BBC publicity, it seems to be finding an enthusiastic audience.

Next week's Radio Times goes some way to making up for its odd coverage last week, by calling the series "this glorious dramatisation... The entire cast are magnificent. It's surreal, black-humoured and wickedly enjoyable."

I carried the banner at the British Library's celebration last evening sharing the stage with Sebastian Peake and China Miéville and a daunting trio of readers: John Sessions, Zoe Wanamaker and Miranda Richardson.

Over the weekend I visited an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Mervyn and his wife, Maeve Gilmore at Viktor Wynd Fine Art, here I am with Sebastian in front of one of his mother's paintings of him as a boy on Sark...

The website We Love This Book celebrates 100 Years of Mervyn Peake and publishes an extract from Clare Peake's poignant and beautiful portrait of her parents Under a Canvas Sky as well as my introduction to Maeve's novel, Titus Awakes – along with a goodly puff for the radio series!

HISTORY IN THE MAKING

Here I am surrounded by members of the cast of my play-cycle, The History of Titus Groan, based on the novels of Mervyn Peake, which begins this afternoon as 'The Classic Serial' on BBC Radio 4 at 15:00 and will run until Sunday 13 August.

Six months in the writing and making, produced by Jeremy Mortimer (who also directed with Gemma Jenkins and David Hunter) and with music by Roger Goula, the plays feature Luke Treadaway as Titus and David Warner as the Artist.

An impressive cast is headed by Miranda Richardson (Countess Gertrude), Paul Rhys (Lord Sepulchrave), James Fleet (Doctor Prunesquallor), Tamsin Greig (Miss Irma Prunesquallor), Adrian Scarborough (Flay), Mark Benton (Swelter), William Gaunt (Bellgrove), Claudie Blakeley and Fenella Woolgar (Lady Cora and Lady Clarice Groan)...

Also in the cast are Olivia Hallinan (Fuchsia), Jane Whittenshaw (Nannie Slagg), James Lailey (Sourdust), Gerard McDermott (Barquentine) and, later in the series, Gerard Murphy as Muzzlehatch and Maureen Beattie as Juno.

The malevolent Steerpike is played by Carl Prekopp seen here recording the scene where he climbs to freedom up the walls of Gormenghast Castle in the first play, 'Titus Arrives'...

The photo was actually taken horizontally with him crawling along the floor, but this is radio – The Theatre of the Mind!

And just to show that, even if it is radio, no effort is spared to create authenticity of action, here's Carl, aided by Studio Manager, Jennie Burnett, recording a scene at the beginning of the fourth play in which Steerpike is almost drowned in the moat of Gormenghast Castle...

That's all to come... Meanwhile, if you miss today's broadcast, you can catch a repeat broadcast, also on Radio 4, next Saturday evening, 16 July, at 21:00.

Or you can catch it right now on BBC iPlayer!

In fact all of the episodes, as they are broadcast, will be available via the BBC iPlayer and remain accessible until the series is complete. Then, eight days later, it will be possible to download and purchase all six hours of drama to keep forever!

You can read series producer, Jeremy Mortimer writing about the production on the BBC Radio 4 Blog and here I am talking about what I believe is going to be a fantastic series...

Photos: David Hunter and Islay Bell-Webb

CASTING CONTINUITY

This is a photograph I took of the brilliant David Warner during the recording of The History of Titus Groan, my cycle of radio plays based on the novels Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone by Mervyn Peake with elements from Titus Awakes, the shortly-to-be published 'Lost Gormenghast Novel' written by Peake's widow, Maeve Gilmore.

For me this project represents a return to previously-explored territory, because, in 1984, I wrote two 90-minute radio plays based on the first two novels that won Sony Radio awards for myself and my producer, the late Glyn Dearman.

It was an interesting cast: Sting as Steerpike, David Warner, Freddie Jones, Eleanor Bron, Bernard Hepton, Judy Parfitt, Sheila Hancock, Stratford Johns, Maurice Denham and Michael Aldridge.

One day, during recoding, Robert Eddison, who was playing Sourdust, Gormenghast's Master of Ritual, informed me that he had been in an earlier radio version dramatised by the author and broadcast on the Third Programme (now Radio 3) in February 1956.

I knew of this version because Maeve Gilmore had given me a copy of the script and, having struggled valiantly to condense Peake's elaborately crafted prose into play form, I had been amused to discover that he had been far less faithful to his book than I!

Of course, as author, he had the perfect right to do what he wanted – and he did! To give just one example: the Christening of the infant Titus (a scene which includes important events and encounters) took place in the library on the evening (much later in the novel) when, under the conniving tutelage of Steerpike, Lady Cora and Lady Clarice Groan set it on fire.

Robert Eddison had vivid memories of that production in which he had played Doctor Prunesquallor. Broadcast live with cast and orchestra it had begun seriously over-running as a result of which, the author had sat on the studio floor, cutting the script and handing revised dialogue to the actors as they stood at the microphone! Sadly (or, perhaps, happily!) no recording was made of that version!

But I was greatly struck by the continuity of Eddison having been in both productions and, this time round, wanted to find an opportunity to have a member of the 1984 cast in the new dramatisation.

So, I was hugely thrilled when David Warner, who had played Lord Sepulchrave in my first foray into Gormenghast, was able to revisit it, not as one of its denizens, but now as the Artist in whose extraordinary visionary imagination, the place was conceived.

The History of Titus Groan begins its broadcasts on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 10 July at 15:00 and runs until 14 August with repeat broadcasts on Saturday evenings at 21:00 from 16 July-20 August.

Carl Prekopp (Steerpike), Luke Treadaway (Titus) and
Hugo Docking (Young Titus)

Visit the official BBC History of Titus Groan website.

Photos: David Warner by Brian Sibley; Steerpike and the two Tituses by Islay Bell-Webb

PEAKE OF PERFECTION

I am currently working on a series of radio plays for BBC Radio 4's 'Classic Serial' based on the Titus Groan novels of Mervyn Peake.

Re-reading Peake's fantastical prose, I came across a wonderful phrase which I had totally forgotten describing of the manner in which the gargantuan chef, Swelter (right), addresses the terrorised kitchen urchins who work for him.

The author, writes of Swelter leaning forward, "dropping each confidential word like a cannon ball smeared with syrup."

Brilliant!