12 Imaginative British TV Shows About Witches
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Last Updated on September 15, 2026 by Stefanie Hutson
British television has been telling witch stories for more than fifty years, and they fall into two fairly distinct groups. Some are about women who genuinely have powers. Others are about women accused of having powers by neighbours. We've tried to include some from each category below.
Warning: Many of these are a bit harder to track down than our usual lists. That's mainly because there aren't THAT many British shows about witchcraft, and many of them are either older or they were a bit less popular. Some of the older ones have been uploaded to sites like YouTube (a bit of a gray area, given that these are not official channels), and many others can be tracked down on DVD if you're truly interested. Where possible, we've listed the most recent streaming option as of September 2026.
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A Discovery of Witches (2018-2022)
Diana Bishop is an American historian descended from a line of witches, and she's spent her adult life ignoring that inheritance in favour of academic work. While researching alchemical manuscripts at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, she calls up a volume that's been missing for centuries, and every vampire, witch and daemon in Europe is suddenly interested in her. One of them is Matthew Clairmont, a handsome Oxford geneticist who was born in sixth-century France and made a vampire around 537.
The series ran to three seasons and 25 episodes, adapted from Deborah Harkness's All Souls trilogy and produced by Bad Wolf for Sky One. Teresa Palmer (Hacksaw Ridge) and Matthew Goode (The Crown, Downton Abbey) lead, with Alex Kingston (Doctor Who, ER) as Diana's aunt, Owen Teale (Game of Thrones), Lindsay Duncan, Sheila Hancock, and James Purefoy. Stream it HERE.
Domino Day (2024)
Domino is a twenty-four-year-old barista living in Manchester, but she's also a witch who has to draw energy out of other people in order to survive. She meets men on dating apps to do it, choosing ones she judges to deserve it, and she leaves them alive but drained. A local coven has noticed what she is doing and starts tracking her, and when their leader lures her in, Domino's ancestors possess her and tell her what she actually is.
Lauren Sequeira, who wrote for Gangs of London, created the six-part series for BBC Three. Siena Kelly (Adult Material) plays Domino, with Percelle Ascott (The Innocents), Poppy Lee Friar, Babirye Bukilwa, and Alisha Bailey. It was retitled Domino Day: Lone Witch for its American release, so search under that name if the original title brings nothing up. Stream it HERE.
Half Bad: The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself (2022)
Britain's witches are divided between the respectable Fairborn clans and the outcast Blood Witches, and sixteen-year-old Nathan Byrne is the son of a Fairborn mother and Marcus Edge, the most feared Blood Witch alive. The Council has monitored Nathan his whole life for signs that he will turn out like his father, and when he turns seventeen he has to find Marcus in order to receive the ceremony that will give him his powers.
Joe Barton created the eight-episode series for Netflix, adapting Sally Green's Half Bad novels for Andy Serkis's production company, the Imaginarium. Jay Lycurgo leads, with David Gyasi (Interstellar) as Marcus, Nadia Parkes, Emilien Vekemans, Paul Ready (Motherland), and Kerry Fox. It's considerably more violent than the young-adult framing suggests, with a graphic spell in the third episode that reviewers singled out at the time. Unfortunately, Netflix cancelled it six weeks after release despite strong reviews – so if you absolutely can't do shows that have loose ends, you'll want to skip this one.
Hex (2004-2005)
Medenham Hall is a boarding school built on an estate where a line of women were tried and executed for witchcraft in the eighteenth century. Cassie Hughes, a withdrawn student who doesn't fit in with her wealthier classmates, touches an antique vase belonging to those ancestors and finds herself with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities she can't control. The powers attract the attention of Azazeal, leader of the Nephilim, who wants a child by her.
Julian Jones and Lucy Watkins created the series for Sky One, and it ran to two series and nineteen episodes. Christina Cole (Casino Royale) leads the first series, with Jemima Rooper as her ghostly roommate Thelma, Colin Salmon as the headmaster, and Geraldine James as Cassie's mother. Michael Fassbender plays Azazeal several years before Hunger and Shame made his name. The second series hands the lead to Laura Pyper as a witch hunter who has been alive since the sixteenth century. When it came out, the series was often called “Britain's answer to Buffy the Vampire Slayer“. Though it's not currently streaming in the US, you can grab the DVD HERE.
Switch (2012)
Stella, Grace, Hannah and Jude are four women in their twenties who share a flat in Camden and would rather get on with their careers and relationships than keep up the Wiccan traditions their mothers raised them on. They do keep casting spells to fix things anyway, usually badly, and each spell creates a series of new problems. When something goes properly wrong, one of them sends the others a text reading “switch” and they all come running.
Tim Price and Chloe Moss wrote the six episodes for ITV2, and Touchpaper Television, the company behind Being Human, produced them. Lacey Turner (EastEnders) plays Stella, with Phoebe Fox (The Aeronauts), Hannah Tointon (The Inbetweeners), and Nina Toussaint-White (Bodyguard). Caroline Quentin of Jonathan Creek appears as Grace's overbearing mother. The girls spend much of the series feuding with a rival coven of far posher witches from Kensington. It sits closer to a sitcom about flatmates than to a supernatural drama, and ITV2 cancelled it in December 2012 after the ratings fell away. A few years back, this one was available to stream in the US, but we haven't seen it on any US services in a while. You can track it down on DVD HERE.
The Burning Girls (2023)
In 1556, during Mary I's persecution of Protestants, eight villagers were burned at the stake at Chapel Croft in Sussex, two of them young girls. Five hundred years later the village still marks the anniversary by making twig dolls and setting them alight, and local belief holds that the ghosts of the two girls appear to people who are about to come to harm. Reverend Jack Brooks arrives with her teenage daughter Flo to cover the parish after the previous vicar killed himself, carrying secrets of her own from her last posting. Two teenage girls also vanished from the village thirty years ago and were never found.
Hans Rosenfeldt (The Bridge, Marcella) and Camilla Ahlgren adapted C.J. Tudor's novel into six episodes for Paramount+. Samantha Morton (The Serpent Queen, Minority Report) and Ruby Stokes (Bridgerton) lead, with Conrad Khan (County Lines). The burned girls of the title were Protestant martyrs rather than accused witches, so this is a story about persecution and perception rather than magic. Reviews were mixed. The Telegraph called it the Vicar of Dibley crossed with The Wicker Man (an odd mash-up, to be sure).
Incredibly, despite being a fairly recent series, this one isn't currently available to stream in the US (not even via streaming rental sites) – and it hasn't even been released on DVD. The best we can suggest is to try the book, if the subject interests you. You can get it HERE – and you can put in a request with your favorite British TV streaming service.
Midwinter of the Spirit (2015)
Merrily Watkins is a recently widowed vicar who moves to Hereford with her teenage daughter and begins training as a deliverance minister, the Church of England's official term for an exorcist. She's one of very few women doing the work, her mentor is blunt about what it will cost her, and the diocese is not unanimously in favour. Then, the police ask her to consult on a murder in which the victim was crucified…
Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch, Afterlife) adapted the second of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins novels into three episodes for ITV. Anna Maxwell Martin (Ludwig, Motherland) leads, with David Threlfall (Shameless) as her mentor, Sally Messham as her daughter, and Siobhan Finneran (Happy Valley, Downton Abbey) as a cafe owner with an interest in the occult. This one sits right at the edge of the category, since the antagonists practise Satanism rather than witchcraft, but the tone is much the same, and it was filmed on location in the Herefordshire countryside. Watch it HERE.
The Witchfinder (2022)
It's 1645, the Civil War is on, and Gideon Bannister is a witchfinder whose career is going badly. He arrests Thomasine Gooch, a local woman accused of killing a neighbour's pig by supernatural means, and sets off to deliver her to the assizes at Chelmsford in the hope that a successful prosecution will make his name. The trip to Chelmsford takes up all six episodes. For those not well-versed in the history of British witch-persecution, it's worth noting that the position of “Witchfinder General” was not a state-sanctioned job title, but there was a real man, Matthew Hopkins, who used the self-proclaimed title during the 1640s.
Neil and Rob Gibbons, who write the Alan Partridge shows, created, wrote and directed this BBC Two sitcom, and Steve Coogan executive produced it for Baby Cow. Tim Key (Alan Partridge, Peep Show) plays Bannister and Daisy May Cooper (This Country, Am I Being Unreasonable?) plays Thomasine, with Jessica Hynes (Spaced, W1A), Daniel Rigby, and Reece Shearsmith.
This is another frustrating one where, despite being a recent series with a lot of appeal, it hasn't yet made it to a US streaming service. You can grab it on DVD HERE, but we also recommend requesting it at your favorite streaming service.
The Worst Witch (2017-2020)
Mildred Hubble lives an ordinary life with her mother until Maud Spellbody crashes a broomstick into their balcony, at which point Mildred talks her way into Cackle's Academy and discovers she is a witch herself. She isn't a naturally gifted one, and much of the series is about her being the least capable student in a school full of girls who find it all much easier.
Emma Reeves developed the series from Jill Murphy's books for CBBC and the German broadcaster ZDF, and it ran to four series and 52 episodes. Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us, Game of Thrones) plays Mildred for the first three series in her first television role, with Lydia Page taking over for the fourth. Clare Higgins plays Miss Cackle and Raquel Cassidy (Downton Abbey) plays the strict deputy head Miss Hardbroom. This is the third screen version of the books, and it's available on Netflix in the US (as of September 2026). There's also a 1986 film and a 1998 series (available HERE).
Simon and the Witch (1987-1988)
Simon is a sensible primary school boy whose best friend is an elderly witch. She's vain, greedy, frequently incompetent, and entirely uninterested in behaving herself in public, so Simon spends most of his time managing the consequences. In the first story she teaches him how to turn the school gardener into a frog and then claims to have forgotten how to reverse it.
Children's BBC adapted Margaret Stuart Barry's books into twenty-five fifteen-minute episodes. Elizabeth Spriggs plays the witch and Hugh Pollard plays Simon, with Joan Sims of the Carry On films as the snobbish Lady Fox-Custard. Naomie Harris, who went on to Moonlight and three Bond films, appears as a schoolfriend in one of her earliest roles, and Nicola Stapleton, later Mandy in EastEnders, plays the class telltale. You can get it on DVD HERE.
Lizzie Dripping (1973-1975)
Penelope Arbuckle meets a witch in the graveyard of her Nottinghamshire village, and nobody else can see her. This is a particular problem for Penelope because she already has a local reputation as a fantasist, which is where the nickname of the title comes from, so her account of events is dismissed before she has finished giving it. The witch herself is sharp, self-interested and not especially kind – so it's not your typical warm and fuzzy story of a little girl and her witchy bestie.
Helen Cresswell, who later created The Demon Headmaster, wrote all nine episodes across the two series for BBC1. Tina Heath plays Penelope several years before she became a Blue Peter presenter, and the stage actress Sonia Dresdel plays the witch. It was filmed in Eakring, the Nottinghamshire village where Cresswell lived. You can find it on DVD HERE.
The Witch's Daughter (1995)
On the Scottish island of Skua, a woman whose husband was lost at sea drowns herself in grief. When the lobster catch that sustains the island fails soon afterwards, the islanders decide she cursed the sea, and her orphaned daughter Perdita is barred from school and shunned as the witch's daughter. She lives on the edge of the community with an elderly housekeeper until two visiting children, one of them blind, befriend her and pull her into an entirely different sort of trouble involving jewel thieves.
The ninety-minute film is adapted from Nina Bawden's 1966 novel, and Patrick Bergin (Sleeping with the Enemy) appears among the cast. The BBC had already adapted the novel once before, as a five-part serial in 1971 with Fiona Kennedy in the title role. Stream it HERE
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