The Sorcerer's Apprentice (TV series)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a children's television programme that aired on BBC One. It was hosted by Barney Harwood, and saw 14 lucky scholars picked from auditions taking place across the UK. The successful applicants were then taken to magic school, where they were given 18 days of training by professional magicians. The programme ran for 21 episodes in July 2007. It was broadcast to co-ordinate with the release of the final Harry Potter book, and the fifth film.

The Sorcerer was Max Somerset, and the two teachers were Sophie Evans and Tariq Knight. David Penn was a regular on The Sorcerer's Apprentice Extra, a follow-up programme broadcast the following day on BBC Two. He also starred in the second series.

Series 2, which had a completely new look and followed 12 new children, started filming in August 2008 and began broadcasting on 25 January 2009 on BBC Two. Max Somerset returned as the Sorcerer along with the magic teachers Tariq Knight aka Mr Knight and Sophie Evans aka Miss Evans. Ortis Deley hosted for this 10 part series. Series 3 also finished filming in 2008.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (German: Der Zauberlehrling) is a poem by Goethe written in 1797. The poem is a ballad in fourteen stanzas.

Story

The poem begins as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by pail, the apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him – using magic in which he is not yet fully trained. The floor is soon awash with water, and the apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he does not know how.

The apprentice splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a whole new broom and takes up a pail and continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell. The poem finishes with the old sorcerer's statement that powerful spirits should only be called by the master himself.

German culture

Der Zauberlehrling is well known in the German-speaking world. The lines in which the apprentice implores the returning sorcerer to help him with the mess he has created have turned into a cliché, especially the line Die Geister, die ich rief ("The spirits that I called"), a garbled version of one of Goethe's lines, which is often used to describe a situation where somebody summons help or uses allies that he cannot control, especially in politics.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2002 film)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a 2002 fantasy film. Although set in England, the film was shot on location in South Africa.

Synopsis

Every hundred years, the evil Morgana (Kelly Le Brock) returns to claim Fingall's talisman from the wizard Merlin, with which she intends to destroy the world. For the last fourteen hundred years she has failed... now she intends to conquer all.

Young Ben Clark (Byron Taylor) moves with his parents to a new town, where he befriends his elderly magician neighbor, Milner (Robert Davi). Ben has a natural talent for magic and wants to learn all that he can from this old man. Ben carries the same scar as the original staff-bearer 1,400 years before. Both Morgana and Milner, who is revealed to be Merlin, see this as a sign that this time, the battle between good and evil will be stronger and harder than ever.

Ben must make his own choice between good and evil as he is drawn into a battle and must draw on his own spirit and magic to decide which path to follow and hence, the fate of the world as we know it.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010 film)

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a 2010 American fantasy adventure film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, directed by Jon Turteltaub, and released by Walt Disney Pictures, the team behind the National Treasure franchise. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Monica Bellucci. The film is named after the The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment in Disney's Fantasia (with one scene being an extensive reference to it), which in turn is based on the late 1890s symphonic poem by Paul Dukas and the 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad. Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), a "Merlinian", is a sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan, fighting against the forces of evil, in particular his nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), while searching for the person who will eventually inherit Merlin's powers ("The Prime Merlinean"). This turns out to be Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a physics student, whom Balthazar takes as a reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling apprentice a crash course in the art of science, magic, and sorcery, in order to stop Horvath and Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige) from raising the souls of the evil dead sorcerers ("Morganians") and destroying the world.