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Estelle Daniel, producer:
The twins' make-up presented a formidable challenge. The need to look so similar that, in Mervyn Peake's words, they are 'identical to the point of indecency.' Sandra Shepherd, who did their make-up every day, said that she concentrated on three things to turn Zoë Wanamaker and Lynsey Baxter into twins: their eyebrows, the slant of their eyes and their lips. For equality, she copied one mole from Lynsey's face, and one from Zoë's, while the hairdresser Liz Michie fitted the wigs, after shaving Zoë's hairline at the front. It helped that the twins are supposed to have both suffered from something like a stroke at the same time, both losing the use of their left hands. So their make-up is daubed on in big blobs of colour, as if put on by a child.

Odile Dicks-Mireaux, costume designer:
There were not very good pictures of the twins (from Peake). We had a very good reference images of Barquentine, the Queen, Steerpike, Fuchsia, Prunesquallor -- even the king, you know, with his crown. But the twins were the ones that we had the least reference for.

Estelle Daniel, producer:
Like the dresses of the other members of the Groan family, the fabric for the gowns worn by the twins cost only about £20 a piece. The base is a corduroy, bought, as most all of the fabrics were, amid the bustle of Brick Lane market, on the other side of the river from the Rotherhithe warehouse.

Estelle Daniel, producer:
The purple (a royal colour) shines through the upper layers, hand-stitched pieces of cloth, under a cheap gold lamé netting on the outside.
Some text excerpts courtesy of HarperCollins Entertainment, The Art of Gormenghast by Estelle Daniel (2000) |
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