Creating a Peake performance

“I think Mervyn Peake is underappreciated, especially among our generation. I’ve lost count of the number of times people have said 'oh my mum loves Gormenghast' or, 'ooh me dad’s a big fan, eh',” begins director Hamish Kallin, when asked why Theatre Paradok have chosen to stage John Constable’s 1992 adaptation of Mervyn Peake’s most famous fantasy novels. 

While the choice of play may initially seem a little odd, Theatre Paradok’s mission since its creation has been to present alternative theatre performances to their audiences. “I am tired of fantasy being ruled by the joint honours of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings,” continues Kallin. “Not in a sense of trying to pit them against each other (though I reckon Swelter could take Aragorn in a fight any day) but merely to say, 'hey, you there! There is space on your bookshelf for something that challenges you, something that is not afraid of a world where the lines between good and evil are as blurred as they are every day'."

The public’s love affair with Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter is strong, and shows no signs of wavering. So why did Theatre Paradok choose Gormenghast over other famous fantasy novels? “No matter how many times you read Gormenghast, your imagination is shot open...” Kallin says. “From the pieces splattered on the floor a new world is crafted...so grotesque it appals you; so funny it induces chuckles, and ultimately so reflective of ourselves that it both scares and reassures you.”

Peake’s trilogy, consisting of Titus Groan (1946), Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959) has emerged time and time again in various forms, through radio plays, animated films and the BBC and PBS’ celebrated TV mini-series, which was broadcast in 2000. Concerning themselves with the lives of the Royal family of the fictional country Gormenghast, the books centre on the eponymous Titus Groan, heir to the Gormenghast throne. Following him from birth, through betrayals, battles for power, to a search for identity and a longing for a life free from social rules, hierarchies and exclusion.

But as Peake’s text is so rich and full of ideas, characters and settings, staging Constable’s adaptation has often proved problematic. “The list of challenges has been longer than this article will allow, but the biggest is of course the most predictable, and arguably the most enjoyable; fitting an incredibly detailed 1,000 page novel into a time frame of less than three hours without losing the point of it all. Many of the challenges are more mundane...” Kallin explains, before continuing; “Theatre Paradok works in a different venue for every production, which offers us a truly exciting amount of artistic freedom, but nevertheless entails a whole lot of trawling through insurance forms, rental agreements, hires, deposits, fees etc. The more bureaucratic shit the council threw at us, the more committed we became to overcome it.”

While Kallin is ready to admit that the production hasn’t been without its problems, whether caused by the production itself or the meddling ways of Edinburgh City Council, he remains fully committed to the project and is quick to give credit to the company: “What we’ve done is something unique, not only because we’re putting on a play that has never been tackled by a student group in Edinburgh before, but also because we’re doing it in a venue that has never been used by a student group in Edinburgh before. We’re using artwork that has been done especially for the play, taking the integration between projection and stage-acting to somewhere aesthetically bold and beautiful. We’re using a collage of sound effects rather than music to deepen the atmosphere.”

Despite the production's stature, many still argue that Gormenghast is out of date, something that Kallin rejects, defending that Peake’s themes of social change and revolution could never be more relevant: “Until the world has changed – truly changed, and the power dynamics of our everyday interactions are reworked by some long-lasting, far-reaching revolution – Gormenghast will never be out of date. And when it is, it will be a fantastic relic of a bygone era.”