The Tudor setting also enabled the introduction of real-life historical characters, including playwright Christopher Marlowe, played by Victoria star Tom Hughes, and Queen Elizabeth (Casualty’s Barbara Marten in a role she was clearly born to play) whose advanced years do not preclude her from flirting with Clairmont.
“I’m having it written into all his main scenes that women find me attractive,” jokes Goode. Also joining the cast is Outlander star Steven Cree, playing Clairmont’s nephew Gallowglass, a towering warrior fierce in battle but equally unafraid of revealing his soft heart.
Sheila Hancock’s Goody Alsop is a powerful witch who Diana meets shortly after arriving back in 1590. She begins to teach Diana her craft and the pair form a close bond. However, Goody’s health is ailing in her older years.
Have you seen the show A Discovery of Witches and noticed a Central New York connection? One of the characters lives in Madison County.
A Discovery of Witches is a British fantasy television series based on the All Souls Trilogy of books by Deborah Harkness. The show itself is
Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, unexpectedly discovers a bewitched manuscript in Oxford s Bodleian Library. This discovery forces her back into the world of magic in order to unravel the secrets it holds about magical beings. She is offered help by a mysterious geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Despite a long-held mistrust between witches and vampires, they form an alliance and set out to protect the book and solve the mysteries hidden within while dodging threats from the creature world.
If you re liking
The Watch, you may want to take a gander at these other fantasy stories brought from the page to the TV screen:
1.
Speaking of Pratchett, let s kick off this list with a collaboration between Pratchett and
Neil Gaiman. Their story of angels and demons was made into a TV series in 2019, starring
David Tennant and Michael Sheen. We see Tennant as the demon Crowley and Sheen as the angel Aziraphale.
Typically, the two are at odds, but with the world at risk, they join forces to fight against the Antichrist and a forthcoming Armageddon.
2.