Merlin becomes magically hip

Bradley James and Colin Morgan had great fun on the set of Merlin. Photo / Supplied

Richard Wilson flips back one of his long, grey locks and announces: "I think it is safe to say this is the hip version of the Arthurian legend." Those locks endow a hippie-ish, if not exactly hip, look to the actor best known as One Foot in the Grave's irascible and very definitely bald Victor Meldrew. Wilson is in full make-up and costume, including wig, as he sits out a take of The Adventures of Merlin, the BBC's new evening family drama, starting tonight on Prime. It's a tale of the mythical King Arthur and his cohorts, but not the one that you think you know.

Here, both Arthur (Bradley James) and the wise wizard Merlin (Colin Morgan) are teenagers. Arthur is still only a prince and under the domineering control of his erratic father King Uther Pendragon (Anthony Head). Merlin is a penniless young man who turns up at Camelot searching for the court physician, Gaius (played by Wilson).

Merlin, however, can do magic. "He's a regular guy who just happens to have these powers," explains Morgan. And, since we're in more sophisticated magical terrain than Harry Potter's, Merlin needs no wand to cast spells. He just flashes a glance at the object he wishes to enchant, and makes magic with his eyes.

It's a skill he has a lot of fun with, but only in secret since the grumpy Uther has banned magic from his kingdom. "The idea of Merlin is that viewers will have a sense of the direction of the wider narrative, but no idea, while the two are still boys larking about, quite how it will get there. Eventually I tell Merlin he's got to use his magic because it's his destiny to protect the once and future king," explains Wilson of Gaius, who takes the boy wizard under his wing. "But in the meantime, I've got to rein him in because if he's seen doing magic he'll be either put in the dungeon or beheaded."

Luckily, where Merlin is being filmed, they're pretty well equipped with dungeons. The BBC has achieved rather a coup on this front. Saving unaffordable levels of computer-generated imagery (CGI), the outside scenes are being shot at the castle of Pierrefonds just outside Paris, a massive folly designed by the architect Viollet-le-Duc, an obsessive medievalist, for NapoleonIII in the 19th century. The castle was never finished and Napoleon never stayed there, but he did subsequent film-makers a great service by creating a spanking new-looking ancient pile full of vast empty rooms and dungeons.

When I visit the set, King Uther is there in his royal cloak and crown overseeing an impressive sword fight in front of the castle walls, and hordes of French extras are bellowing their encouragement in their best English. "Making it is all just as much fun as it looks," grins Katie McGrath, who plays Morgana, Uther's beautiful ward.

Anthony Head himself, best remembered as vampire-killer Buffy's mentor and the Prime Minister in skit show Little Britain, apparently keeps everyone laughing. "He's such a giggler," says McGrath, "and a bit of a rocker", adds Angel Coulby, who plays Morgana's maid Guinevere (the same Guinevere who will one day marry Arthur).

On a shoot lasting most of the year, there's been plenty of time for camaraderie to build up between the seasoned stars and the younger actors. They've even been on a trip to Disneyland. "Richard Wilson came on Space Mountain with us," says Coulby, with relish.

The four young leads all have impressive CVs already. Morgan, in particular, won rave reviews for his performances in London's theatrical versions of Vernon God Little and All About My Mother, but nothing, he says, could have prepared him for this. "You have to just learn on the job. Scenes where you're running through a forest being chased by a griffin - you can't possibly ever rehearse those kinds of things in your bedroom."

Although the castle may be a real one, the BBC got in CGI experts The Mill and Morgan and co had to do a lot of acting against green screens.

* The Adventures of Merlin debuts on Prime tonight at 7.30pm.