Castle Qi
TITLE: Castle Qi
FANDOM: QI
CHARACTERS: Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Jessica Hynes, John Sessions, Ronni Ancona, Ben Miller, Rob Brydon, David Mitchell
NOTE: This is a silly little thing that's supposed to resemble Gormenghast. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It is impossible to see beyond Castle Qi in any direction but up. A dense, permanent fog roofs the surrounding land that rolls downwards outside the castle walls. It is this way for miles around. Presumably there are places beneath where the land rises, but it never quite breaks the silver ceiling. The only evidence of a town below comes from the occasional visitors that emerge, pale and blinking, from the fog to visit the castle. Most are suitors, intent on dragging away the pretty and cheerful Lady Jessica. But Lady Jessica is taken and they go away again, forlorn.
Castle Qi has many inhabitants. There is Lady Jessica, as already mentioned. She is the last scion of the family of Qi. She has a husband, somewhere, but the castle is so vast that they rarely meet. Her parents are both, presumably, dead. Lady Jessica is forgetful; she could be mistaken. Her last remaining relatives are her twin uncles, on her mothers side, Benjamin and Robert. They are both quite mad in an almost identical manner.
The remainder of the occupants are servants. Chief amongst these is the Professor. Long before the masters of Qi died away, the Professor was looked upon as lord of the manor. He teaches one and all in the castle, but it is mostly the servants who come to him now. He lives in a set of chambers above the library, from where the squawk and screech of the two librarians never fails to reach him. These two are John and Ronnelda, the mocking birds, imitating anyone who enters the library with ghastly, astonishing mimicry - when they aren’t at each others throats. Alan, the footman, often passes through on his way to lessons with the Professor. So does David - a footman also, but always on the very edge of being something different. He is filled with logic, he is very earnest and he is not always friendly even though beneath it all he is good. Occasionally he meets a very polite ghost of himself on the stairways, who is always smiling at people insincerely and who he absolutely detests. Alan, meanwhile, is not filled with anything but good humour. He is quite content for the Professor to attempt to fill him with knowledge, but the success rate is very low.