For some reason, I saw the word ‘witch’ this week and it started me thinking about all the different witches that are out there in books and on TV. There are quite a lot when you give it some proper thought. To narrow it down to five, my top five at that, I decided to pick only the good ones.

1. Sabrina the Teenage Witch. My goodness I loved Sabrina. Those shows were a staple of those lazy days watching kids TV. Even when I was too old for them, it was still fun to watch Sabrina messing everything up and trying to deal with a troublesome and talkative cat. I saw Melissa Joan Hart in some kind of Christmas tv movie thing over the holidays and it was not great, but it reminded me of the good old days. It all went a bit wrong when Sabrina moved to college, and I didn’t see the last couple of series, but it hasn’t really taken the shine off for me.
2. Willow from Buffy. Mostly good, I said. Not always good. Willow was much better when she was just discovering her magical powers, and I still can’t quite fathom how she went from a tentative spellmaker to that all-powerful evil overlord who wanted to end the earth. Where did all that power come from? Perhaps practice really does make perfect after all. I haven’t seen any Buffy in ages, now I want to.
3. Bewitched. I’m assuming that all subsequent programmes of the Sabrina ilk came about from Bewitched. You can’t really argue with a witch who just wriggles her nose to make things happen. There seems to be quite the market in programmes about running around trying to fix things with your magical powers, breaking things, and then having to run around and clean it all up without revealing your hidden talents. I’m happy with that though!
4. The Worst Witch. There was a TV show of this but I have only glimpsed it. I get my knowledge of Mildred Hubble from the books, and they are brilliant. I suppose it is really a tale of being quite useless and bullied at school, but finding friendship and making the best of it. Inspirational stuff for kids, if you don’t count the broomsticks and cats.
5. Simon and the Witch. This is a weird one for me. I know that I love it, but I can’t really remember a single thing about. I know that I’ve seen it on TV, and I know it had that girl out of Eastenders in it. I also know I had a novelisation of it at one point. But truly, I don’t remember anything about it. I’m guessing it was about Simon? And presumably a witch.

In not quite so good witches, I had Anjelica Huston for her portrayal in the Roald Dahl movie, plus the evil scary witches from The Craft. I wonder if I could make another Friday Five of bad witches. Hmmm.