The much - counter adaptation of Susannah Clarke ’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is eventually coming to US shores this weekend . But how hard was it to take this Regency existence of magic and moral ambiguity to video ? We sit down with serial writer Peter Harness to learn more about clear Strange & Norrell .
io9 : Have you been proud of with the reaction to the show in the UK so far ?
Peter Harness : I ’ve been passing pleased with the reaction . People seem to have been really flow in love life with it , which is courteous to hear ! I think that it ’s a book that a lot of people love , myself include , and it ’s a sort of world that ’s easy to get lost in , and the lineament are very loose to accrue for — and if masses are gradually doing that , I ’m glad about it . I think that mass get to know about it , and the more sequence that are out there to be caught up on , it ’ll be well , because it ’s good watched in bout , like a lot of series are these daylight .
I ’m hearing a luck of love for it , which , you acknowledge , you do n’t really get for something like Wallander ( Harness ’ BBC adjustment of Henning Mankell ’s offence novel ) . [ Strange & Norrell ] is a thing that you may get passionate about .
You ’ve just mentioned Wallander , and you ’ve had experience of doing other version in the past tense . What drew you to Strange & Norrell ?
Harness : I ’ve say this before , but I [ had ] decided to not really do any more adaption . Then the chance came to do Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell , and it ’s really more or less my favorite Word . I knew what a sort of enormous challenge it would be to adapt for boob tube , and do it justice , so I could n’t really release that down ! Plus , I jazz I was going to be work with Toby Haynes , the director — we ’d just worked together on Wallander , and were prominent common fan of each other , so I knew we ’d have a nifty time doing it . We were a good team to work on it together , so it was a mixture of [ wanting to do it ] because of the account book and the squad .
talk of director Toby Haynes , he was brought on early in the production process , which is unusual . What was it like take your director there for the earliest stage ?
Peter Harness : I opine that that ’s a adept thought anyway . The more you’re able to have the important creative voice in [ production ] before , the more you’re able to get together a reproducible vision of it , the more you’re able to all contribute your own bits of expertness , and the easier it ’s sound to be to really realize something lucid . Firstly , we necessitate as much wit on it as possible , and we needed to be very specific about what we were move for , because although we had a generous budget , all of that went on the screen in a very targeted kind of way . When we want to do something impressive , we really pick it for striking reasons and to further the plot . All of those decisions were a deal easier to make when there was me and Toby , and Nick [ Hirschkorn ] the manufacturer , who was there from twenty-four hours one as well . We were all on the same varlet , and all partake in a lot of the duty for it . We ’ve all been there from the kickoff to end , correctly up to the end of the edit and saving . I consider it ’s apportion what would ’ve been an impossible work load for any one of us to manage on their own .
I think it ’s a outstanding way to do it . I intend , TV is basically a collaborative anyway , and I think that even though showrunners incline to get credit for steering the whole creative vision of the show , I think it ’s much more of a team effort , and it ’s a practiced thing that that gets acknowledged . It ’s a myth that writers kind of come up with everything in TV , and it ’s prissy to put to work in an surroundings where that [ myth ] is n’t cohere to .
If people are n’t familiar with the book , what do you call up will draw them to the show ?
Harness : Well , I imagine that it ’s very much what you ’d carry from a lavish BBC period drama — that Earth and that sort of clowning of manners , and those interesting characters — but within it it ’s get this variety of ancient , legendary compass weaved in , elements of revulsion and phantasy . And fantastic exceptional effects !
The fashion I always guess of it was like a Jane Austen Good Book with magicians in it . I suppose that ’s a way to bring people to it , but the more that I see masses ’s reaction to it , is to say we always think of it really that , despite pronounce that it ’s an “ unfilmable ” book — that ’s one of the universally acknowledged things about it — we always saw it as a seven - hour motion picture . It starts reasonably easy , and then foregather speed and gathers momentum as it choke . It ’s not a “ tarradiddle of the hebdomad ” thing , it ’s one epic seven - hour story , which we just wanted to work up and build and build on . It pay back — and manifestly I ’m survive to say this ! — but it repay sticking with it . It surprises you , I think , it goes to places you do n’t expect and if you invest in spend some clip in that world and with the fictitious character , eventually the taradiddle of Susannah Clarke ’s book starts to exert some variety of magic spell on you .
It ’s something where we do n’t explain it all at once for you , so there ’s plenty of whodunit and things that are n’t lay on the table at the beginning . It ’s something that if you stick with it , I can pretty much guarantee you ’ll enjoy it more and more as it goes . I would say that though , would n’t I ? [ laughs ]
You mentioned the slow pace of the Good Book — part of that is because Susannah Clarke ’s all-inclusive footnotes . How did you jump thinking about how to approach adapt that wealthiness of information into a seven - part boob tube series ?
Harness : There is a really staring world she builds around [ Strange & Norrell ] , and I reckon Susannah ’s populace - building is the in force I ’ve ever add up across . It ’s a completely veritable world , and that was really something that we tried hard to replicate . We wanted it to feel veritable , we did n’t want it to feel detached from the human realness [ of the narrative ] . We worked very hard to make it calculate veritable , to get the filth under the fingernail , and to show the reality of the position . Also , much more so than anything else , we lick on making it a real human drama , you have sex , about what it would in reality be like for a human being , with all of their foibles and flaw , to go through the experience Strange and Norrell do .
I think Susannah ’s footnotes , and the way that she kind of constructs that world is part of that . I ’ve used those to make up the earth and give it incidental detail , and give it a reality . Some of the footnotes are in reality incorporated into the story — the auction fit at the end of episode 2 ( above ) is in reality a footer . There are a few others I ca n’t think , but it ’s all been woven into the story .
Another affair we need to do was that , if masses were singular , to station them back to the Koran , where they ’re going to get it all spelled out to them . We do n’t take it all , and we ’ve geld things down and focalise thing in certain ways , but that ’s because it ’s a drama and not a book .
What do you think was the most challenging aspect of adapting the book for TV ?
Harness : It was all pretty challenging . It was a bit of an endurance test to get through , a lot of problems to solve . But I cerebrate the biggest challenge was to basically [ separate ] the book into bits , and find oneself the right dramatic complex body part we ’d stock all of our master characters through for seven hour , in a way that would imply eventually all those stories intersect and interwove . That was very backbreaking , because it ’s not quite like that in the account book — in fact , it ’s not really like that at all . But we had to put in that spectacular drive that keep on you affect through all the filmdom time , and then assemble the account book over it so it had the same texture and the same voice , the same flavour as the book .
Whenever I ’m strain to do an adaptation , I taste and make the experience of watching the adaptation kind of feel like the experience of show the volume , even though it might be completely different . What I ’ve attempt to do with this is make it palpate like a close adaptation , whereas in a lot of ways it ’s different . That ’s the tricksy affair to do , that kind of technical , structural , writerly trouble to have . It just means banging your head against a brick wall or a blank keyboard for a long time before you come up with the proper way to do it !
I ’ve noticed in the early episodes , Strange and Norrell are a little more easily set as “ good guy and bad guy cable ” than they are in the book . Is that something that will change as the series progresses as we get to know them more ?
Harness : I opine so . I stand for , I call up that even when Norrell is being a actual jolt , I still require people to have sympathy for him . I want them to feel pitiful for him , and I think there ’s always a instant , even at [ his ] nastiest menstruum , you’re able to see that basically underneath he ’s just a lost small boy who ’s made this terrible mistake and is just quite pettily essay to not let anyone know he ’s been so naughty .
I think it ’s very boring to go through a serial where the characters are n’t nuanced , and as the series run , you will see the ripe and big side , and the indifference and the complicated sides of all of the characters . Your sympathies can shift and change a niggling bit , and at the ending of it , I bet you will love Strange and Norrell . To know all is to forgive all with both of them .
You ’ve got to take people on the journeying . It ’s a long chronicle and the characters are always evolving . I call back that ’s the most interesting direction to do it . I do n’t desire to pass over them uninfected at the goal of every week and have them go back to their character archetypes . They ’ve both got good and bad within them — Strange is chesty and Norrell is frightening , as Vinculus ( Paul Kaye ) says . That , to a greater extent , is what labor both of them . As far as they ’re have-to doe with , that is . Maybe they ’re being driven by something else entirely … I guess we might know that by the end of episode seven ! [ express mirth ]
What ’s next for you as a author now that Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is out ?
Harness : I ’ve got another couple of installment of Doctor Who , which I cogitate they ’re just finishing shooting at the mo . I ’ve been view chip and pieces from them , and I remember they ’re looking quite interesting . I ’ll be concerned to see how they go down .
And then I ’m going to try and have a break for a calendar month ! I ’ve got a twain of newfangled fantasy - style serial coming up , both for the BBC , but I have n’t really started putting playpen to paper on those yet .
It sounds like you ’ve take in it after Strange & Norrell !
Harness : I feel it . I need a couple of month ! I ’m in all probability not going to drop a line another word again , ever . [ express joy ]
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell airs this Saturday , June 13th , on BBC America at 10/9pm Central .
Daily Newsletter
Get the good tech , scientific discipline , and culture news show in your inbox daily .
News from the future , delivered to your present tense .
