I fell at the first reading the Titus trilogy, and managed to miss it on telly.

However, yonks ago, I read Mr Pye (recommended by my Peake freak brother) and enjoyed it enormously. It is a morality fairy tale of the dangers of attempting to balance good and evil, set in post war in the Channel Island of Sark.

The Beeb then dramatised the book shortly after my reading it, and they made a fair hand of it, especially the femme fatale, Tantagieu wandering about in the nuddy. I qualify that by stating I usually avoid seeing "the film of the book" and any film with a number in the title (apart from Toy Story 2, with the children, tonight!!).

Critical acclaim of Gormenghastly over here has generally been good, and my sibling Peake devotee gave it his blessing.

Skipjack