Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - 'The Friends of English Magic'

It's been a while since I read the book, but as I recall, it's pretty accurate to
depict Strange (Bertie Carvel) as slightly baffled as to how he got anywhere,
and Mr Norrell (Eddie Marsan) as simply pissed off to be there.

English Magic is not what once it was. What once it was is not yet clear, but what it is is gentlemen eating fabulous dinners and discussing theories over the port, while poo-pooing the idea of casting spells (because some stereotypes aren't very empowering.) Enter Mr Norrell, practical magician and hoarder of magical texts. Spurred by his ambitious valet Childermass and a challenge from the gentlemen of the local magical dining club, Mr Norrell animates the statues in York Cathedral and finds himself hailed as the saviour of English magic. Sourly determined to rid magic of its trappings of charlatanry, he unwittingly sets in motion a sequence of events that will bring about the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy, that two magicians will restore magic to England: Mr Norrell, and the dilettante sorcerer Jonathan Strange.

This adaptation of Susanna Clarke's spine-cracking opus has far more pace than the novel (after one hour of an absolutely faithful adaptation we'd be halfway through the footnotes in Chapter 1,) although that still makes for a measured affair. Some reviewers seem unable to forgive it for not being Poldark, but if you're not here for heaving bosoms and shirtless ex-vampire/werewolf/dwarf Aidan Turner, there's a lot to like. While actual porn is thin on the ground, the costume and scenery porn is lavish, and part of the success of the production must be that it looks like a BBC Dickens adaptation, just with more moving statues and scrying mirrors.

Thoros of Threadneedle Street!

Perpetual second fiddle Eddie Marsan impresses as Mr Norrell, bringing the requisite absolute nonentity to the great Magician of Hanover Square, while Bertie Carvel belies his stage roots to give a spirited performance as the more dynamic - but so far shiftless - Strange. Norrell's shifts from private rage and animation to public awkwardness, and his horror at finding that London has heard that, far from conjuring statues to life, his great feat was to magically clean all the laundry of York, are deftly underplayed by Marsan. Carvel contrasts with a wide-eyed amazement at everything, which means that his receipt of spells and prophecy from a man under a hedge authentically seems no more startling to him than would be finding a sixpence on the road.

The supporting cast is also excellent, including Sam West as Sir Walter Pole and erstwhile Richlieu Marc Warren popping up to raise the dead as the Gentleman with the Thistle-Down Hair. There's not much in the way of female characters, but that was an issue with the book and a simple side-effect of Clarke's adherence to the traditions of the period style in which she was writing. The minor characters are even more Dickensian than the central dramatis personae, with particular mention going to Norrell's hangers-on Mr Lascelles and the almost grotesque Mr Drawlight, to the entire port-swilling Yorkshire society of magicians, and to ubiquitous scruffy religious crazy person Paul Kaye's turn as street magician and agent provocateur Vinculus.

'The Friends of English Magic' is a strong opening episode, although compared to the book it is oddly silent on the legend of the Raven King, who is referred to, but not at any point explained in even the most basic of terms. I don't think it's ever going to win over anyone who came here for the bosoms, but it was never meant to, and despite the costume porn connection, it really is comparing apples and curtain fabric.