It’s a bit of a Doctor Who reunion for Sky One’s upcoming screen adaptation of Deborah Harkness’ A Discovery Of Witches. Already, the show is being overseen by former-Who producer Julie Gardner and ex-BBC commissioning editor Jane Tranter. Their Bad Wolf Studios company is also set to film the show in Cardiff.
Now we learn that as well as the already-cast Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode, Lindsay Duncan (seen in the 2009 special The Waters Of Mars) and River Song herself, Alex Kingston, are being added to the ensemble. Kingston is set to take on the role of Sarah Bishop in the series, whilst Duncan is played Ysabeau de Clermont – her first vampire role!
The show is set to debut on Sky One next year. The official synopsis reads as follows…
Brilliant historian Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer, Hacksaw Ridge) is a witch denying her own heritage. But when she unexpectedly calls up an ancient, bewitched manuscript from Oxford’s Bodleian library, one that was thought by the creatures to be lost and could answer the mysteries of their existence, she finds herself thrown into the heart of a dangerous mystery – and into the path of the enigmatic geneticist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. (Matthew Goode, Downton Abbey)
Matthew is driven to solve the looming threat of the creatures’ decline and extinction, but their unlikely alliance to find the book before it falls into the wrong hands – and their deepening relationship – threatens to violate age-old taboos and shake the fragile peace that exists between the species.