First Look – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

We finally have our first look at footage from one of the most eagerly anticipated adaptations of 2015.

It’s been ten years since Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell arrived and became one of the most acclaimed fantasy novels ever, and the story is finally getting filmed. Clarke’s tale of two English magicians living and working during the Napoleonic era won just about every major award a fantasy novel can hope to earn, and next year we finally get to see it come to life in a BBC miniseries. A few weeks ago we got the first image and synopsis from the series, and now we’ve got our first glimpse at footage, featuring Eddie Marsan as Mr. Norrell.

The clip is quite brief, and only has time to showcase a bit of Mr. Norrell and his rather extensive library, but it does speak very much to the tone of the series, at least from Norrell’s point of view. Though he’s quite knowledgeable about magic, Norrell prefers a rather cold, scholarly approach, keeping to his books and his solitude most of the time. So the quiet way in which he informs everyone else in the scene that he is, in fact, a magician, is very fitting. Check out the clip below.

We also have a new synopsis for the series :

Susanna Clarke’s novel is an epic tale of nineteenth-century England and the two magicians who emerge to change its history. In the year 1806, in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, most people believe magic to have long since disappeared from England — until the reclusive Mr Norrell reveals his powers and becomes a celebrity overnight. Another practising magician emerges: the young and daring Jonathan Strange. He becomes Norrell’s pupil and the two join forces in the war against France. But Strange is increasingly drawn to the wildest, most perilous forms of magic and soon he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell will arrive on BBC One and BBC America sometime early next year.

Source http://www.vanishlive.com/magic-news/2014/12/20/first-look-jonathan-strange-mr-norrell/