Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: BBC miniseries blending magic with Napoleonic England

Collider reports that Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, a 2015 BBC miniseries adapted from Susanna Clarke's novel, is streaming on Prime Video.

The seven-episode series is set during the Napoleonic Wars in an England where magic exists but is rarely practiced. Eddie Marsan's Mr. Norrell seeks to make magic respectable and even offers his services in the war, while Vinculus (Paul Kaye) prophesies that Jonathan Strange (Bertie Carvel) will help restore magic; Strange's more impulsive approach contrasts with Norrell's bookish methods. The show also introduces a faerie antagonist, the Gentleman with Thistledown Hair (Marc Warren), whose abductions and necromancy touch off a darker strand of the story and affect characters such as Mrs. Pole (Alice Englert).

The adaptation compresses a novel of more than 700 pages into roughly seven hours, and the series makes some changes — for example, Arabella (Charlotte Riley) is given a more dramatized relationship with Strange, and characters like Stephen and Childermass receive less attention — yet it retains the core of Clarke's story. At a short runtime, the miniseries offers a compact option for viewers and, according to the piece, deserves wider attention.

Key Topics

Culture, Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, Napoleonic Wars, Bertie Carvel