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Mildred Hubble is the much suffering heroine of our story. She comes form a non-witch background family and passed her entrance test to Cackles´ mostly on account of her abundant imagination and her story about a three-headed giant.
Mildred is in constant danger of flunking the hard exams her strict formmistress sets her - and she´s as often as not just saved by the bell when her teacher makes ready to put her on the bus home. Creating havoc wherever she goes, mixing up spells and potions, Mildred is a walking disaster area, frequently destroying the potionlab and often on the brink of bringing utter peril upon the school. Yet, with the help of her good friends Maud, Enid, Jadu and Ruby she manages to prevent armageddon just in time, often supported by older pupils like Fenella and Griselda - yet also hindered by youngsters like Sibyl and Clarice.
This doesn´t exactly make her the teacher´s pet of the staff - especially of Miss Hardbroom who prefers zealous, hardworking pupils like Ethel Hallow. The latter, backed up by her sidekick, Drusilla Paddock, takes a disliking to messy Mil right away. The pair of them tries very hard to get her thrown out - but as she has this knack of saving the teachers, the pupils and sometimes the whole academy from utter destruction, she always escapes getting sacked.
While she is hopeless at passing exams smoothly and attending lessions without making major mistakes, Mildred has a distinct talent for drawing and painting - which will finally help her to pass the entrance exams to Weirdsister College. This talent manifests in quite a magic way - and even enables Millie to conjure up a Prince Charming (or rather Percy) who will rescue all the Academy members from the evil Uninvited Fairy.
Boys in general (including the caretaker´s nephew and all wizard apprentices) tend to fancy Mildred - though while at school she never seems to know what to do with them when they fall for her... But then, she´s got HB for a chaperone who is only too willing to sort out the useless males... |
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Maud is Mildred´s first and best friend at school. As Maud is fairhaired, short and plump while Mildred is tall, thin and dark, they make as much a funny looking pair as Miss Cackle and Miss Hardbroom.
Maud is usually very gentle, but she can become quite snappy when someone (i.e: Ethel) attacks her best friend. She even dares to face HB when it comes to defending Mildred. Mostly Maud, along with Jadu, is mouthing the voice of reason amd tries to prevent Enid from leading Mildred down the garden path or mischief...
Her talent for solo performance at Miss Bat´s school concerts earns her much credit - yet she is not overly popular with the teachers as she gets frequently washed away into the maelstrom of Mildred´s mishaps... |
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Enid Nightshade |
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“Look, don´t I manage to look completely innocent and meek? Just U wait and see...” |
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Enid joins the school in the second term of Mildred´s first year. At first Maud is very jealous of her newly founded friendship with Millie, yet later they become buddies. At the beginning of her career at Cackle´s Enid seems very quiet and demur, but her classmates soon learn that still waters run deep. She knows lots of spells and uses them regardless of the Witches´ Code - i.e: for selfish and trivial ends. Often her spells don´t work the way they´re supposed to do - and accordingly everybody is in very deep water as soon as Miss Hardbroom discovers what they have ben up to. In this case, Enid wisely avoids owning up and thus manages to keep out of trouble herself. Yet her friends can depend on her to come up with harebrained schemes and desperate measures to rescue them when they are close to “the chop”.
A bit more wordly than her harmless classmates, Enid is only too willing to let them participate in her knowledge about spells, boys and other dangers of life... |
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Jadu, like Maud, ist mostly very sensible and during the first two years at Cackle´s of a rather meek nature. She only perks up during the end of the third year when fighting for students´ rights, opposing the staff and special Miss Hardbroom. (“No uniforms, permission to go out of bounds and more chips!”) in the Unfairground ep. In consequence to these actions she nearly gets thrown out by for once adamant Miss Cackle, but along with Mildred she is saved from this dire fate by her faithful friends Maud, Ruby and Enid who conjure up a very scary fairy - the Uninvited- who attempts to put the whole academy to eternal sleep... |
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Played by Harshna Brahmblatt |
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Ruby Cherrytree is the resident mad scientist of the Academy. She is heavily addicted to all kinds of “electronic contrivances” and therefore a thorn in the flesh of oldfashioned Miss Hardbroom. The amount of walkmen, discmen, mini ghettoblasters, gameboys, cyber pets etc confiscated (and presumably evaporated) by her formteacher is quite impressive. Ruby must have very generous parents to restock her pocket money funds...
As she gets older, Ruby makes her own mechanical and magical inventions - including a light machine for the Christmas pageant and a time machine...When this calls forth two witches from the past who between them endanger everybody while fighting (there´s also the possibility of the castle crumbling to bits as history is about to be changed), Miss Hardbroom who has just for once praised Ruby “Good girl - how very disciplined of you! I am pleased..” is strongly inclined to change her opinion. Yet Mildred and her friends again manage to save the day... |
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played by Joanna Dyce |
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Ethel Hallow |
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“One of THE Hallows, you know? Oh, you don´t know? Well, what could one expect of YOU?!?” |
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Ethel Hallow always gets straight As in everything - and though she and her only friend, Drusilla, are always up to mischief, all the time plotting to get Mildred and her friends into trouble, they don´t get caught as often as they´d deserve.
Ethel has got many talents - among them pouting, bossing people around and insinuating herself into important people´s graces. Being the daughter of one of THE Hallows - a family with a very witchy tradition - she regards herself superior to all the other pupils. Her father is chair of the board of governors - and Ethel likes to point out his influence on the fate of the school to the staff.
Even though she´s a very successful pupil, the teachers do not always take her side - Miss Cackle, who has a soft spot for Mildred, distrusts Ethels´ charms and even Miss Hardbroom who approves strongly of Ethel´s eagerness to learn has to admit that Ethel´s character is not exactly one to be approved of... |
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Played by Felicity Jones, who also appeared in “The story of the Treasure Seekers” as Alice and in “Servants” as Grace May - see here for more pics and infos - and by Katy Allen. |
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Every baddy needs a sidekick to order around - and Ethel has got Drusilla.
Drusilla Paddock relishes in the sweet and simple pleasures of life - such as nicking and devouring other people´s candy, getting an extra helping of chips or thumping the people who according to Ethel deserve a thumping.
Not the brightest candle on the chandelier, Dru relies on her best friend to guard her through the complicated structures of school - and if she gets a little exploited now and then, she takes that into the bargain.
Yet, if Ethel is not paying attention or if she is mad at her friend, Drusilla has also been spotted teaming up with Maud and even Mildred and her other friends - and she seems to get along with them remarkably well. |
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“Once we´re through with uni, we´ll run our own academy for young witches - and no boys will be allowed in either.” |
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Fenella and Griselda are one year ahead of Mildred and her friends - and accordingly they are much more sophisticated and learned. Much fascinated by forbidden spells and potions they study on their own, mostly by nicking forbidden books from the secret parts of the library. Beware if HB finds out...
They are very willing to distribute their knowledge to younger pupils like Mildred and her classmates and even to hapless little witches like Clarice and Sibyl. When catastrophe ensues, Fen and Gris mostly manage to keep cool and to come up with some spell for the rescue.
The sexist attitudes of several wizard apprentices (see Gaz and Baz) can only be rated as highly irritating - and Fenny and Grissy won´t miss any opportunity to rub in the witches are much better and more clever than wizards... |
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Fen played by Julia Malewski and Emily Stride (season 3) - Gris by Poppy Gaye who also appeared in “Coming Home” - I might put up some screengrabs one day... |
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Sibyl Hallow and Clarice Crow |
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“Oh, do stop sobbing, Sibyl! Well, have another hankie, then!” |
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Sibyl Hallow (poor girl , she´s actually Ethel Hallow´s younger sister and bossed to death by her) and Clarice Crow are one year younger than Millie and her cronies - and wouldn´t they love to be their classmates!
Sometimes Mildred gets quite distressed with Sibyl´s admiration - yet after a while, Sibyl finally realizes (with some aid of her friend Clarice) that Mil isn´t too keen to hang out with younger girls, so she stops being cringy...
However, she never stops crying for more than five minutes altogether. Clarice, who is more of a tough cookie nature, always has to function as “the girl with the strong shoulder Sibyl can have a good weep on”... Despite her red hair, Clarice thus proves that she hosts an infinite amount of patience - which will soon be exhausted, though, once she has to deal with Sibyl´s sister Ethel who always tries to either belittle her sister or to engage her in one of her “Make trouble for Mildred” plans. |
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Played by Charlotte Knowles (Sibyl) and by Georgina Isla Graham |
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