Neil Gaiman will help bring Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books to the small screen after years of talks about a new adaptation of the gothic fantasy series.
Gaiman, who began discussions with studios about a film adaptation of Peake’s tale in 2015, will produce a television series instead. Set in the crumbling castle of Gormenghast, the books follow the life of Titus Groan, the 77th Earl of Groan, and the machinations of the monstrously ambitious kitchen boy, Steerpike.
Comparing Peake to JRR Tolkien, Gaiman said it was “an honour to have been given the opportunity to help shepherd Peake’s brilliant and singular vision to the screen”.
“[The books] were crafted by a master, who was also an artist, and they take us to an ancient castle as big as a city, with heroes and villains and people larger than life who are impossible to forget,” said the author, who has also been working on a forthcoming adaptation of Good Omens, the book he co-authored with the late Terry Pratchett. “There is a reason why there were two trilogies that lovers of the fantasy genre embraced in the 1960s: Lord of the Rings and the Gormenghast books.”
Peake, who died in 1968, published his three Gormenghast novels: Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959). A fourth book in the series, Titus Awakes, was completed by his wife, Maeve Gilmore, who died in1983. It was published in 2011.
Production company FremantleMedia North America, which adapted Gaiman’s American Gods for television, said several companies had been competing for the Gormenghast books. Gaiman and writer-director Akiva Goldsman (A Brilliant Mind) are among the projects executive producers.
The Gormenghast books were adapted by the BBC in 2000, starring Christopher Lee. Jonathan Rhys Meyers was Titus’s nemesis Steerpike, a character whom Peake describes as having a “gibbous quality” to his body. “Limb by limb, it appeared that he was sound enough, but the sum of these several members accrued to an unexpectedly twisted total,” he wrote. “His face was pale like clay and save for his eyes, mask-like. These eyes were set very close together, and were small, dark red and of startling concentration.”
