I love "The Worst Witch", although I am 17 now, but seeing it now still brings back all those great memories I had with my brother and sisters. I loved the books by Jill Murphy as well, and as far as I am concerned, the show stays true to the books. Cackles Academy is exactly as I imagined it, with tall turrets and what have you. The theme song is lovely, and in a good way, sticks in your head for a long while. The acting, considering it was a TV show, usually part of CITV's programming before they stopped showing it for a while, was great, Georgina Sherrington is a good actress and stays true to the character of Mildred. The other girls are fine too, and Felicity Jones is very nasty as Ethel Hallow. Katy Allen who replaced her isn't quite as good but still gets the essence of the character right. My favourite has to be Kate Duchene as Miss Hardbroom, her interpretation was quite frosty, exactly like Miss Hardbroom should be. The scripting, stories and special effects weren't at all bad either, the writing actually is very funny and well written especially with Miss Hardbroom. I was just wondering whether anybody saw the 1986 TV film version with Fairuza Balk, Diana Rigg and Tim Curry, it wasn't as good as this, and not really a childhood favourite, but I liked it, and I am just wondering if anybody here had seen it and liked it. I give this show 10/10. Bethany Cox

This links with my other comments, etc, re the four ITV works inspired by Jill Murphy's Worst Witch novels. This TV series is the second and was my favourite. Worst Witch v Harry Potter: I got to the point in the Harry Potter series where I had to accept that they were no longer about what had first attracted me to them. For a while I still found Harry Potter interesting, but it was about something other. By 2010 I still occasionally re-read the novels, but only re-watched the first two features and now I find that Blu-ray makes those even better. Getting the DVD sets of the Worst Witch series and its sequels, they are nothing like early Harry Potter, but a lot of the fascination was not so different. I had to rate this as special. For my earliest versions of this review I used a heading: Tempting to rate this as 10 of 10 plus a spoiler hazard. At 2012 it is Zoey 101 and iCarly that I rate as the ultimate. Characterisation is the real difficulty for me and the early episodes of iCarly have that difficulty, too. I find that a lot of stories from England have people with gritty personalities to an extent that gets in the way of the stories, for me. The Worse Witch novels by Jill Murphy are a pleasant exception to that, be they stories for seven year olds. I find the Harry Potter novels to be mild re that aspect. To access the elements of the Worse Witch TV series that I like, and I find that there is lots that I can like, I need to shrug off some aspects and I do have a lot of experience in shrugging off some aspects of fiction. By 2012 I find some aspects of the New Worst Witch series to be even better than this 1998, just the characterisation aspect is an even bigger problem. On balance I still prefer this 1998.

okay i love this series just as much as i loved the books and Harry Potter for that matter. I am a practicing wiccan. Have been for a goodly number of years. i think it's silly to attribute the bad rep that wiccans get to a show intended for children. the creators, just as with j.k. rowling, do not pretend that the show has anything to do with real witches. it is a fictional work and was not intended to provide a survey of wicca as a religion and those who would confuse the two are likely the same type of people who think harry potter is akin to black magic, so i'm not too worried about their opinions. mostly i think people have some idea that wiccans are in cahoots with satanists and that gets their knickers knotted and i don't think that's what this show is suggesting. LOL. it's a kiddie show meant for laughs and nothing more. i myself would probably be disconcerted to see the show being more realistic. as much as i like charmed, the fact is that it took plenty of aspects of wicca and distorted or exaggerated them (along with adding a whole mess of fiction) leaving behind a muggy picture of what witches do. i'd be more willing to point the finger at charmed than i would at the worst witch (or it's counterparts, see Harry Potter, Sabrina the Teenage Witch...)

As an avid reader, I enjoyed this delightful TV adaption of The Worst Witch! I remember being all excited to get home just so I could watch it! Miss Cackle was one of my faves, as she reminded me of one of my own teachers! There has definitely been some 'modern additions' to it, but it still retains its essence of old British 'charm'! But people should remember that this is based on an old book, intended for young children with vivid imaginations! It does not in anyway portray or is associated with wicca - as some people assume! This book was written way before Wicca became a big concept in modern society! And the producers definitely did not have Wicca in mind while producing it! So don't think that they are wrongly type casting! They just made it to the criteria in this classic book!