A HIGHLY anticipated BBC drama will feature one of the city's most recognisable backdrops when it airs on Sunday.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell used York Minster's Kings Screen to recreate scenes from the bestselling book by Susanna Clarke for the seven part drama.
Crews spent a week on location in February 2014 to film parts for the 19th Century tale, which follows the reclusive Mr Norrell who proves practical magic still exists in England by making statues inside the cathedral speak and move.
The incident sparks a new enthusiasm for the dark arts, which takes in war, peace, fairies and even resurrection.
Author Susanna Clarke visited the Minster during the filming and described the surreal experience of recreating a ‘nineteenth-century-England-that-never-was’ in the middle of twenty-first-century York during an ordinary weekday evening.
"We are gathered in York outside the Minster. People are walking home from work, driving their cars through the city centre, eating in restaurants. Everything is quite as normal.
"Except that in just the one spot — before the great West Front — a snowstorm is blowing; and battling their way through it is a covey of black-coated magicians in three-cornered hats with lanterns in their hands. Mr Norrell is about to do magic in York Minster again."
As well as filming at the cathedral, the team transformed York Minster’s St William’s College into the Old Starre Inn – where the York Society of Magicians meet – and a bookshop stocking rare magical texts.
College Street and Chapterhouse Street will also be seen in the BBC show.
Nick Hirschkorn, producer, added: "In the original book, the incident at York Minster is a key turning point in the story so it was fantastic to be able to use the actual Minster to film scenes for the drama. The cathedral’s St William’s College and surrounding streets also proved the perfect setting for other parts of the story.”
The cast includes Eddie Marsan (Best of Men, Ray Donovan) as Mr Norrell and Olivier award-winning Bertie Carvel - an Olivier award-winning actor for his role as Miss Trunchbull in Matilda - as Jonathan Strange.
The seven-part drama airs at 9pm on BBC One this Sunday.
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