Providing counterpoint as Strange, Carvel’s often manic energy is set to quizzical roil. Able to intrigue and repel with a single heavy-lidded glance, his Norrell is a conundrum whom neither the story nor the actor seem in a hurry to explain. Marsan, who also stars in “Ray Donovan,” is as always reason enough to watch. Norrell is a vain little man who, early on, practices a bit of unwise magic that introduces a destructive supernatural creature into the world as well as the notion that perhaps magic was abandoned in England for a reason. Though a proponent of “respectability,” Mr. Norrell as an apprentice, their relationship turns competitive, as much two versions of England as they are two sorts of magicians. He finds his talent by accident and takes to it mostly because it offers him enough professional focus to win Arabella (Charlotte Riley), the woman he loves Norrell is not - intuitive, impetuous and extremely human. Jonathan Strange (Carvel) is everything Mr. Just as he has established himself as the country’s only magician, another emerges, seemingly in answer to the prophesy of a wild-eyed street conjurer. Reluctantly taking a house there, he offers his services to the British army, currently in danger of losing all to the French. Prompted by one of the younger members of the Learned Society as well as his own servant Childermass (Enzo Cilenti), Norrell gives a demonstration of his skill that quickly makes him the talk of London.

Norrell (Marsan), a glum but self-important toad of a man who has spent his life holed up in his fine house keeping magic alive and to himself. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, the story exists in an England where magic is universally accepted as real but extinct, something to be discussed theoretically and studied historically, like ancient Greek or Latin.īut as the Learned Society of York Magicians, a group that might easily share a glass of rum punch with Samuel Pickwick and friends, quickly discover, magic is not dead.

Jonathan strange susanna clarke