The Worst Witch (1998 TV series)
The series stars Georgina Sherrington and Felicity Jones (as Mildred Hubble and Ethel Hallow respectively), and was broadcast from 1998 to 2001 on ITV, and later on HBO. The series also stars veteran British actress Una Stubbs as the eccentric chanting teacher, Miss Bat. Felicity Jones was replaced by Katy Allen after the first series, it was explained away as a magical makeover (a "witch-over"). New characters were also added, such as Frank Blossom (the school's caretaker), Miss Crotchet, the music teacher in the third series who replaced Miss Bat and two students from ethnic minorities – Ruby Cherrytree and Jadu Wali. New recurring characters included Merlin Langstaff, a wizard apprentice who befriended Mildred, his two mean-spirited acquaintances – Barry "Baz" Dragonsbane and Gary "Gaz" Grailquest, Charlie, Frank Blossom's nephew who really wanted to be a wizard, Mrs. Cosie, the nervous owner of the nearby tearoom and Mistress Hecketty Broomhead, the evil school inspector who later became a brief headmistress. Also as a character who appears more than once is Egbert Hellibore, chief wizard and headmaster of Camelot Castle, where Merlin, Charlie, Baz and Gaz live. The first series dramatised "The Worst Witch" and "The Worst Witch Strikes Again", and the second series dramatised "A Bad Spell For The Worst Witch" and "The Worst Witch All At Sea". Both of these two series also contained original stories. The third and final series continued with purely original material.
Grand High Witch
In the backstory, the boy protagonist (named Luke in the film) has a grandmother (known as just Grandmamma in the book and named Helga in the film) who is the nemesis of The Grand High Witch. She once had been one of the very best of the witch hunters and has traveled all over the globe trying to track down the fabled and elusive Grand High Witch, who might be the key to finally defeat her evil kind. The Grand High Witch has a heavy foreign accent and it is also implied to have been originally from Germany. As discovered about her at the end of the book, after she is destroyed: ""Nobody in the world had the faintest idea who she was except the other witches. Wherever she went, people simply knew her as a nice lady. (...) Even in her home district, in the village where she lived, people knew her as a kindly and very wealthy Baroness who gave large sums of money to charity."" The original version of character is relatively asexual compared to the highly sexualized portrayal in the film adaptation as she described only in terms such as being young and "very pretty". In the film version she travels with her black cat, whom she calls Liebchen.