Mervyn Peake to include the third book "Titus Alone". In 1984, BBC Radio 4 broadcast two 90-minute plays based on "Titus Groan" and "Gormenghast", adapted by Brian Sibley and starring Sting as Steerpike and Freddie Jones as the Artist (narrator). A slightly abridged compilation of the two, running to 160 minutes, and entitled "Titus Groan of Gormenghast", was broadcast on Christmas Day, 1992. BBC 7 repeated the original versions on 21 and 28 September 2003. In 1986, "Mr Pye" was adapted as a four-part Channel 4 miniseries starring Derek Jacobi. In 2000, the BBC and WGBH Boston co-produced a lavish miniseries, titled
Titus Crow Jack Vance's futuristic detective, Doctor Who, Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, August Derleth's Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki and Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin. Lumley doesn't acknowledge any of these as conscious inspirations, saying that Crow's time-clock (which derives from Lovecraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key") long predates Who; that he's never read Peake's "Gormenghast" and that the similarity of names is coincidental; and that he "was never too keen on" Derleth's Shrewsbury. He does admit, however, to having "always had a soft spot" for Bram Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing. Collected in "The Compleat Crow" (1987 Hodder