Titus Groan status of the Ladies Clarice and Cora has fallen as he draws them into his power. Pellet: Servant in the Prunesquallors' household. He is replaced by Steerpike at the instigation of Irma Prunesquallor. Shrattle: Armourer. Holds the only key to Groan armoury. 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
Gormenghast (castle) to school. Occupied by the same family for five hundred years, Knole's sprawling layout and varied architecture, added to and modified by successive generations, bear comparison with Gormenghast. (Some of the descriptions of Knole by Vita Sackville-West are also remarkably similar to passages by Peake.) Its massive walls evoke the great Norman castles and keeps of medieval Europe, such as the walled city of Carcassonne (pictured), Rochester Castle in England or Caernarfon Castle in Wales; while the ancient walled Chinese cities of Beijing and Tientsin where Mervyn Peake spent his childhood are a major influence. Another Chinese source may be