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.
List of minor The Worst Witch characters
In the 2017 TV series, Algernon Rowan-Webb is portrayed by Philip Martin Brown, debuting as a frog in the pilot episode, where he indirectly helps Mildred recreate a levitation spell to warn the other students about Agatha Cackle's attempted coup of the school. His status as a human is exposed in the fifth episode "Pond Life", which reveals that he was actually the first wizard to teach at Cackle's, and had a romantic relationship with Miss Bat, but was turned into a frog by spell science teacher Miss Gullet so that she could take the job herself. Once returned to human form, he becomes the spell science teacher himself, although he retains an elongated tongue for use in catching flies.