Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Episode 2: Recap and Review

Twice-turned sleeves, fab hats and a woman in a nightdress on a couch...

But enough about my weekend. How is Lady Pole? Not in a good way. In bringing her back from the dead Norrell has messed with the natural order of things and now she's got a well-shaven Marc Warren invading her dreams, insisting she dance with him each night. He even gives her a finger in a box.

How can a girl refuse? When she tries to tell people what has happened to her a bell rings and a stream of nonsense comes from her mouth. It's the Gentleman speaking through her. "Magic cannot cure madness," Norrell tells Walter Pole. "Her ailment belongs to neither magic nor medicine." Nevertheless, Norrell summons the Gentleman with thistledown hair to tell him to go back from whence he came. For someone who wants to stay away from fairies, Norrell hasn't done a very good job so far.

Norrell now has friends in very high places and has been allowed to assist the government with the Napoleonic Wars. In Brest, French soldiers see British ships in the distance, but they are not what they seem. Cue the first of three stunning special effects sequences in which these looming ships made from rain form a magical blockade that is as eerie and disconcerting as it sounds.

Le magician anglais! Norrell has performed yet another pièce de resistance. The scene in which he enters a room of applauding government ministers is Amadeus-esque. Now they can't get enough of his magic. Gathering around a bowl these men are like witches round a cauldron, peering to see the images shimmering in the liquid. Is this scrying? Hydromancy? Whatever, it's exciting.

"Can we see what Wellington is up to?" asks one. And who else can Norrell bring back to life? Nelson?  Sir Walter Raleigh?

Consider the condition of their bodies, reminds Norrell. Their corpses are hardly fresh. "Ah yes, I suppose they must have come a deal unravelled by now," concedes Lord Liverpool.

Over to a large house surrounded by tangled branches. It is built with bricks that belonged to the castle of the Raven King, from whom all English magic originates, and was once inhabited by Miss Absalom the Enchantress, whom Strange is trying to summon via a dream.

Segundus knows someone is performing magic in the house, and falls into the dream via a second dose of special effects as Miss Absalom appears as a beautiful lady in a blue dress covered with stars. It is the kind of dream no one would wish to leave.

But Segundus frightens her away and Strange is not best pleased. "You with the twice-turned sleeves!" calls he, storming out of the house. "I beg you to speak to the gentleman with more respect!" replies Honeyfoot. Never has an insult sounded more complimentary.

Since being told by Vinculus – the man under the hedge – that he will be a magician, Strange has found his purpose in life with a natural if undisciplined instinct for magic. Impressed with Strange's abilities, Segundus and Honeyfoot tell Strange to apprentice himself to Norrell. "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell," says Honeyfoot. "It sounds very well."

And so to London. But what's that tinging bell? Someone needs to turn their iPhone off. But no, it's better than that. Noble servant Stephen opens a creaky door into a misty forest of tangled branches, and a surreal dreamscape. Impressed with his close shave, the Gentleman invites Stephen to a ball – for dead people.

As dead people go, these people are still quite attractive (or maybe I'm just easily pleased). But now it's time for stunning special effects sequence number three, when Strange conjures stampeding sand-horses to up-turn a ship that has been run aground by Norrell's invisible blockades at Portsmouth.

It's a scene that reminds me of the old Guinness advert from the nineties, but is none the worse for it. And as spells go, it easily competes with anything Norrell can do. Is Strange Mozart to Norrell's Salieri? It was Norrell that Strange saw while performing the 'spell to discover what my enemy is doing presently'. Ooh-er.

With all the gothic tropes – a disturbed young lady in a night dress, big candle-lit houses, a dusty attic (that part of the house that represents the unconscious mind) – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell could so easily have fallen into Goffick overload.

But it's great to see this once-derided genre, like Norrell's English magic itself, being taken seriously. Not only can the special effects give anything from Game of Thrones a run for its money, but the imaginative narrative, with its elegant pace sailing along like a magical galleon, undercuts the clichés with understated humour.

The magician, too, is a welcome change. How nice to see one portrayed minus pointy hat and white beard, and as a practical, plain-speaking, down-to-earth northerner. With a fab fez.