Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Book by Susanna Clarke (2004)
TV Series Written by Peter Harness & directed by Toby Haynes
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a seven-part British historical fantasy TV miniseries adapted by Peter Harness from Susanna Clarke’s best-selling novel of the same name. It premiered on BBC One on 17 May 2015 and ended on 28 June 2015. It was nominated for four BAFTA awards and recognised by the British Film Institute as one of the top ten most important television programmes of 2015.
Cast
- Bertie Carvel as Jonathan Strange
- Eddie Marsan as Gilbert Norrell
- Marc Warren as The Gentleman
- Charlotte Riley as Arabella Strange
- Alice Englert as Lady Emma Pole
- Samuel West as Sir Walter Pole
- Enzo Cilenti as John Childermass
- Paul Kaye as Vinculus
- Edward Hogg as John Segundus
- Ariyon Bakare as Stephen Black
- Vincent Franklin as Christopher Drawlight
- John Heffernan as Henry Lascelles
- Brian Pettifer as Mr Honeyfoot
- Robbie O’Neill as Lucas
- Richard Durden as Lord Liverpool
- Freddie Hogan as Davey
- Claudia Jessie as Mary
- Ronan Vibert as Lord Wellington
- Steve Jackson as Jeremy Johns
- Jamie Parker as Grant
- Phoebe Nicholls as Mrs Wintertowne
- Clive Mantle as Dr Greysteel
- Lucinda Dryzek as Flora Greysteel
- Niall Greig Fulton as The Raven King
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is the 2004 debut novel of British writer Susanna Clarke. An alternative history set in 19th-century England around the time of the Napoleonic Wars, it is based on the premise that magic once existed in England and has returned with two men: Gilbert Norrell and Jonathan Strange. Centred on the relationship between these two men, the novel investigates the nature of “Englishness” and the boundaries between reason and unreason, Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Dane, and Northern and Southern English cultural tropes/stereotypes. It has been described as a fantasy novel, an alternative history, and a historical novel. It inverts the Industrial Revolution conception of the North-South divide in England: in this book the North is romantic and magical, rather than rational and concrete.