The Nice and Accurate Good Omens TV Companion

Christopher Raphael © BBC

“As the owner of two black cats, I’m sure in olden times I would’ve been dubbed a witch, too.”

When Josie Lawrence cackles, she does so with the same heart she invests in her Good Omens character. Introduced in the novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in her final minutes before being burned at the stake, Agnes Nutter and her prophecies inform every page of the story. In the same way, her spirit spans the TV adaptation, after Agnes leaves behind a book of particular prophecies that are interpreted by a descendant determined to prevent Armageddon, one Anathema Device.

“In many respects, even in a seventeenth-century village atmosphere, I think Agnes was a highly intelligent, modern-day woman.” Josie pauses to further consider her character. “The men of the village, including the Witchfinder General, they’re scared of her because she knows everything in advance. She was probably like a lot of women of that period,” she suggests. “Someone great with herbs, and who could heal people if they were sick, but because she’s a woman, and not behaving as a ‘normal’ woman, therefore she must be a witch. Agnes is smart but with magical qualities,” she offers instead. “That’s how I aim to play her.”

Unlike many of her cast members, coming to the story via the script or the novel, Josie Lawrence had already formed a connection with Agnes Nutter in a different medium.

“I played her in the radio series,” she says, referring to the 2014 BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens. “That’s how it all began, and when I decided I adored her. There’s a warmth to Agnes. An eccentric kind of warmth. I also think she’d make a fun dinner guest!” Josie is impressive in the screen version of the part she made her own on the radio. She’ll also be instantly recognizable to fans of the audio version from the moment she delivers her first line. “The voice is the same here,” says the actor and comedian with the distinctive West Midlands accent. “It’s a cross between my own and one that suggests she could’ve come from anywhere.”

A familiar face in the world of comedy, Josie Lawrence has also worked extensively in theater, television and radio, as well as appearing in several films. In Good Omens, Josie calls upon her range and versatility as an actor to unleash a formidable inner spirit in her final act.

“Agnes is an immensely brave and powerful woman,” she says. “She’s preparing for her death when we meet her, which she sorts out in quite an unusual way. It’s very practical in the note she leaves for the milkman, saying that she doesn’t want any more milk and giving her love to his wife. So it makes me think that she was quite loved by some of the women in the village but not by the men.” Josie concedes that in loading her skirt pockets with gunpowder and nails, Agnes Nutter takes out both male and female villagers who have gathered to watch her burn. “Well, perhaps she told some of the good ’uns to stay at home!” she laughs.

Josie is equally struck by the particular way in which her character predicts the end of the world. “Terry and Neil have created this prophetess who sees the future, but often only in an intimate family way and how it affects the people she loves,” she explains. “Agnes’s predictions are precise and also very funny. So, for the day of the JFK assassinations, which she doesn’t mention, she warns that a house will fall down in King’s Lynn. I think my favorite is ‘Do Notte Buye Betamacks,’” adds Josie. “I also love that the book of her prophecies never sold, because it was too accurate. But she has it published for the free copy, and then passes it down until it gets to this wonderful strong descendant.”

Josie’s passion for the story is evident, as is her admiration for the character who takes Agnes Nutter’s book to heart.

“Anathema Device is a modern-day role model. She’s a true kind of feminist; her own woman,” she says, speaking of the character we first meet as a little girl in a Californian beachfront condo as her mother prepares her for a quest foretold in Agnes’s prophecies. The family have made their millions by cracking Agnes’s cryptic prediction that in 1980 Apple would be a company worth investing in. The fact that a passage in the book concerning Armageddon mentions Anathema by name leaves us in no doubt that her life—and future love interest—has been mapped out before her. It takes a strong-minded girl to answer such a calling, and this is where her focus and resolve is first forged.

Claire Anderson was very careful to be true to the period in her designs for Agnes Nutter’s seventeenth-century costume.

Claire Anderson / Sophie Fretwell © BBC

Having drawn on her experience with the radio adaptation to summon the spirit of Agnes Nutter, Josie sought to make sure she had the same visual impact. The most immediate challenge, she explains, came down to the fact that she was appearing in theater as Good Omens preparations got underway.

“I was performing in Mother Courage in London at the time,” she says, “and so costume and makeup came to my rehearsal rooms. They wanted Agnes to wear a kind of puritanical hat, but I didn’t see her as a hat girl, so we went with loads of hair. I had two wigs, one on top of the other, a particular dress made from very thick fiber and a low-cut tunic. She’s very much a Hammer Horror heroine, I think.”

Josie Lawrence speaks highly of Douglas Mackinnon’s skill as a director in adapting Good Omens for the screen. “It looks magnificent, and has everything in it,” she says. “There are moving moments, and it’s incredibly witty and funny. Also, I love the idea of two beings having lived for years and years with each other, grown close and got to rather like humanity. Nothing is completely black and white,” she reasons when asked if the story can teach us anything. “Which is why Agnes isn’t completely a witch. She’s a woman, and the story is about humanity and how we deal with each other.”

Having worked with Neil Gaiman on the Good Omens radio adaptation, Josie regards this latest incarnation to have been another opportunity for her to spend more time with him. “Neil is such a wonderful human being,” she says. “He gets on very well with Douglas, and has a warmth about him that gives you a good feeling about the project. You feel that you’re joining him in creating something unique, and Neil has got this thing about creating. I admire people who do that. They’re constantly living in a world in which they can see things within it differently to the way other human beings can. For me,” Josie Lawrence concludes, “that was what made it so special about meeting him and being in it.”

AGNES NUTTER: Come close until the fire near scorch ye, for I charge ye that all must see how the last true witch in England dies.

Filming at the Weald and Downland Living Museum in West Sussex took place over two days in October 2017. While her character goes out with a bang, Josie Lawrence was only required to be tied to the stake before the flames started rising high.

Location manager Nick Marshall whittled down a list of quintessentially English villages to one that will now be known by Good Omens fans as a picture-perfect Tadfield.