By FRANCES GRANT
The owls were not what they seemed in Saturday's instalment of the surreal and claustrophobic fantasy, Gormenghast on TV One.
No, the strange creature making funny little hooting noises and flapping his leather cloak as if it was wings was none other than barmy Lord Sepulchrave, 76th Earl of Groan.
Indeed, amid the bedlam which ruled most of the second episode of this BBC extravaganza, it was difficult to make sense of anything much.
The first 10 minutes or so - it felt so much longer - was pure shriekfest, with the entire family of Groan, plus a few deranged or deformed hangers-on, howling and gibbering as their library burned down around them.
The four-part adaptation of Mervyn Peake's bizarre Gormenghast fantasy is only halfway through but surely only the most dedicated Peake fans are still bothering to watch.
Or perhaps viewers who are struck by the sheer inventiveness of the Last Emperor-meets-Dracula sets and the lavish, strikingly original costumes are still hanging in there.
Five years in the making, the production is a triumph of design, from the gravity-defying piece of rafia-work teetering on Nanny Slagg's head to extraordinary set pieces such as the second episode's closing number, a waterborne coronation scene to rival any Windsor do.
But it takes more than great headgear - even the extras on laundry detail, for example, sport giant table-napkin-concepts on their noggins - and stunning oriental-style beadwork to make a drama engaging.
The Groans in their improbable clothes look like exotic little wind-up toys roaming though the vast, gloomy environs of their castle.
The most doll-like are the power-crazed simpletons, twin sisters Cora and Clarice (splendidly choreographed mirror-image performances from Lynsey Baxter and Zoe Wanamaker), but like all the demented grotesques populating Gormenghast they are but one-note characters.
Although the casting of Gormenghast was inspired (a mix of grand thespians, comedians and soap actors), everyone seems to be struggling with their horribly limited characters.
Even Ian Richardson, who as the owl-fixated Earl of Groan at least got a decent mad scene to play, couldn't rise above his character's monotonous note of gloom.
In the books, Peake's amazing and lengthy descriptions of his characters more than make up for the fact that they are caricatures with only one or two exaggerated personality traits.
But on screen the actors obviously don't have much to work with. Only June Brown as the grovelling Nanny Slagg and John Sessions' neurotically naughty Dr Prunesquallor come across as rounder characters.
The absence of Peake's wonderfully dark and twisted prose - although screenwriter Ian McKay was probably wise in his choice to do without the lengthy voiceovers which stymie so many literary adaptations - also reveals the thinness of the plot.
Despite the temptation to read all kinds of metaphors into the decaying world of the Groans, bogged down in ritual and easy prey for scullion-on-the-make Steerpike, Gormenghast is a fairytale.
The problem is that with a cast consisting entirely of repulsive grotesques, demented or petulant idiots, there simply isn't anyone to root for. It's a weird visual feast, all right, but in all other respects it fails to satisfy.
TV: They're too weird to work
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