BBC iPlayer - Worlds of Fantasy

Documentary series about fantasy fiction tells how, in the 1950s, JRR Tolkien and Mervyn Peake created texts that revolutionised and popularised the genre.

I've just finished watching episode 2 of The Worlds of Fantasy from BBC Four (the post title is a comment from Joe Abercrombie on the programme). It focuses on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (35 minutes) and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy (20 minutes), the effect of the authors' lives on their work, and their work on future work.

Being a fan of both authors, I was mightily pissed off to find this scheduled against Torchwood (which has been getting slowly better). iPlayer has come to the rescue though (and the streaming was actually half decent).

Watching it has given me a desire to re-read Gormenghast. The beautiful, dense, almost oppressive text mirrored the atmosphere he was describing and creating with Gormenghast. Gah... it's going to have to go on my list.

Alex
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