Still waiting for Mr Darcy? He might be closer than you think
Countless rules and tricks and loopholes – did Lizzy Bennet have to put up with all of this? Would she have? Or would she have hitched up her skirts, told Darcy to shove it, and gone off to get a job in a laundry somewhere, instead of suffering the seemingly inescapable indignities of modern dating?
As this winter turns bitter and the instinct to burrow dials up to 11, most Friday nights, you can find me swaddled in a fleece blanket burrito on the couch, getting all my romantic fulfilment from fictional men written by women.
'I'm not into Uber sex,' says Agathe, the protagonist of Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: a French film in which an idealistic writer gets swept into her own Austen-style romance in the English countryside. 'I'm not living in the right century.'
As if on cue, my phone lights up beside me. It's a picture message from this guy I met on an app more than a decade ago, but never got around to meeting in person. I know without even unlocking my phone that he has sent me a photo of his semi-erect penis.
I turn my phone over.
I turn the movie up.
It can be tempting, in the ashes of yet another failed talking stage or mildly traumatic situationship, to want to retreat into fiction. Romcoms never leave you on 'read'. Romance novels never gave anyone an antibiotic-resistant UTI. Stay lost in a world of costume dramas long enough, and you begin to wonder if dating wasn't easier two centuries ago. Back then, all you had to do to be some hunky aristocrat's manic pixie dream girl was to be refreshingly outspoken, broke, and crap at the pianoforte. The whole criteria for being someone's Prince Charming was to simply not have a secret fiancee. The thought of purchasing a love spell from an Etsy witch would send half these characters into a coma.
But some nagging familiarity dogs me as I enter my fourth hour of Regency-era romance, and it's not because I've seen these films before. It's because I've lived them. When I was 18, I met some version of Captain Wentworth, the main love interest in Persuasion. My Wentworth was as gorgeous and impulsive as the original, with a Brummie accent that made him read dangerous and sexy, and tattoos from his ankles to his earlobes to guarantee that my mother would never approve.
Dating in Melbourne in 2025 is brutal, but it wasn't much better two centuries ago.
When we couldn't make our relationship work, young love and gap years as fleeting as they are, I put an ocean between us and yearned from afar for a decade. Life may have moved on for us both, but a part of me is still waiting for my Wentworth's return; braced, I think, for a long, long email from him that never comes.
And throughout the second half of my 20s, I found myself tangled up in an emotional affair with a man who belonged to someone else. Though it hadn't started nefariously – it was a friends-to-lovers trope if I ever saw one – it dragged on too long, and now, each time I revisit Sense and Sensibility, Mr Ferrars' stuttering charm recalls late-night conversations I'd sooner forget. I wish I could sit down for brunch and mimosas with Ms Steele and have both of us deflate with the relief that neither of us ended up with the wrong guy.
Say nothing of the countless Mr Wickhams in my rearview mirror: roguish, dashing, manipulative, the perfect person to project all my limerence onto. Don't even mention all the grinning, smooth-brained Mr Bingleys I've swiped through: the golden retriever boyfriend personified, most content when chasing a ball or his family's approval. The flighty and deceitful Mr Willoughbys with their hidden agendas, the charming and scheming Mr Elliots – and all the many, many, many earnest and embarrassing Mr Collinses who fancy themselves a Darcy. I've tried it on with them all, learning nothing except that when it's not right, it's always wrong. Hey Siri, play Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter.
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This year is Jane Austen's 250th birthday, and somehow, she is as relevant as she has ever been. Each modern adaptation proves it: Bridget Jones' Diary and all her sequels, Clueless, and – because I have no taste (see my romantic history above) – even Netflix's Persuasion are delicious little treats on which I can't keep from bingeing. Like Taylor Swift songs and horoscopes, it's so easy to take Austen's work and lay it like a filter over your own life, tracing the similarities and disregarding the differences, until it feels as though it was written just for you.
Because dating in Melbourne in 2025 is brutal, but it wasn't much better two centuries ago. At least women's ability to stay out of poverty is no longer tied to how well they cater to the male gaze. At least we can vote. Now, eloping with a hot scoundrel won't ruin your life; it's just fodder for your writing career. (Just kidding.) (Kind of.)
But I have a confession to make: deep down, the misguided romantic in me still wants something phenomenally unrealistic.
Despite a decade of disappointment and mortifying stories, despite living my life according to the Bechdel Test, despite endless anecdata about unsatisfying (if not downright dangerous) heterosexual relationships, sometimes I eschew all my hyper-independence and can admit – to you and only you – that I would really like a romantic hero to stride across a foggy moor and rescue me from myself.
I want Paul Rudd to call me gorgeous and annoying, then kiss me on a staircase, like he did to Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. Sometimes, when my dopamine drops and nobody is looking, I even get lonely enough to fall back into the embrace of that unholy trio: Tinder, Bumble and Hinge.
All the archetypes are there, too.
Fred Wentworth, 31
Six foot with a six-pack on six figures, since apparently that matters.
George Wickham, 26
Looking for my Tinderella. NO GOLDDIGGERS (I do not have any gold to dig).
Eddie Ferrars, 24
Ethically non-monogamist entrepreneur. Me and my missus are looking for a third.
Colonel Brandon is there too. In Sense and Sensibility, he's an older gentleman who falls in love with giddy, flighty Marianne, and waits patiently for her to see through Mr Willoughby's charade. These days, he's the leathery fifty-something who exclusively dates 20-year-olds because they're 'less complicated' and 'more sexually adventurous' than women his own age. Robert Ferrars, from the same novel, was always second best to his brother. Now, his profile pictures are exclusively group shots, leaving you to wonder – hope – if he's the good-looking one in the crowd. William Elliot, sexy layabout and heir to the Elliot estate in Persuasion, would have half a dozen catfish profiles on sugar baby websites, seeking a wealthy Mrs Robinson figure to fund his comfortable lifestyle.
Women aren't immune to this, by the way. Every delusional, self-important woman – including me – believes herself to be a sensible and headstrong Lizzy Bennet but is actually a giddy Lydia, or a socially inept Miss Bates who mistakes herself for an it-girl like Emma Woodhouse. We all know a Charlotte Lucas or two or 10, who, despite deserving the world, wound up deep in the suburbs, cleaning up after Mr Collins. Like Anne Elliot before us, we've all wondered if our first love might show up on our wedding day to speak now or forever hold his peace. You either die an Emma or you live long enough to see yourself become a Mrs Bennet. I'm sure that if I'd ever made it through Mansfield Park or Northanger Abbey, I'd spot parallels between Fanny Price and Catherine Morland and all the women I know, too.
Times may change, but people rarely do.
Funny how the red-pilled hivemind fantasise about returning to traditional values. You can't get much more traditional than the 18th century, and all those women ever did was marry for money and status. If I match with Kevin, 33, do I get an estate in Toorak and 4000 a year, too?
But no matter how many of these characters I meet in real life, no matter how many times I've found myself living out the plot of Austen's novels, it never ends the way I've been taught to expect it to. That's the thing about books and films: they make you forget that the story doesn't end after the acknowledgments.
Surely Lizzy and Darcy would be at one another's throats within a week. Emma and Knightley's lust would fade and they would fall right back into their bickering sibling dynamic soon enough, depressing them and creeping everyone else out. Wentworth, red-pilled and resentful, would throw his hard-earned success and Anne's passive classism back in her face each time she asked him to unload the dishwasher. There are happy endings, and then there are happily ever afters. So why do I still believe?
My relationships with all of Austen's archetypes may have eventually broken down, but not because those guys were awful (although most of them were), or because I was the whole problem (although often I was). It wasn't because they were frogs playing princes, or because I'm a sidekick convinced she's a protagonist. I'm not sensible, patient Anne Elliot. I'm not an effervescent Emma Woodhouse, or rational and cautious Elinor Dashwood. There's nothing I wouldn't give to be Cher Horowitz, but then, I'm not as endearingly messy as Bridget Jones, either – but someone is. My Wickham is someone else's Wentworth. For every Mr Elton seeking his Miss Hawkins, there's a serious and steady Knightley waiting to be scandalised and delighted by his Emma.
Isn't it so nice to believe, however foolishly, that the great big romance of our lives is just a swipe and a few plot twists away?
I saw a psychic last week and she confirmed that I still have a few big love stories ahead of me. She also told me that I'm about to come into great wealth and that my late dog is running around the afterlife in a bow tie, so I'm wont to trust every word out of her mouth.
Argumentative and judgmental as I am – in an endearing way, I swear – I'd like to believe that the universe has laid a path for me that leads to Mr Darcy. I've been waiting 30 years. Someone tall and awkward, moody and quippy, difficult to impress but unendingly loyal, socially confused, terrible at parties – wait, am I describing my dream man, or myself?
While I wait for him to show up, if he ever does, there are endless adaptations and modern retellings to occupy my Friday nights. A little delusion keeps hope alive.
Here's the real silver lining.
Although my life doesn't much resemble those of Austen's protagonists – no bonnets, no trips to Bath for the sea cure – I do have something better; something her heroines dreamed of.
Despite disappointments and unsolicited dick pics, my story belongs to me. I have my own money, my own home, a full and wonderful life that doesn't hinge on marriage or inherited wealth. I'm not a piece of fruit left rotting in the sun just because I haven't made my way to Pemberley yet. Whether I meet 'the one' tomorrow or spend my whole life fostering dogs and watching period pieces, I'll be fine, and so will you. I can be – I have always been – my very own Mr Darcy.
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Why we can't get enough Jane Austen and the hot new takes you need to know
Netflix is doing a new Pride and Prejudice. A fresh Sense and Sensibility film is on the way too. We ask the experts why we still so ardently admire and love Jane Austen 250 years after her birth. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a streaming service or movie studio or book publisher in want of a good fortune must be in possession of a hot new take on Jane Austen. And so it is, in this 250th year since the birth of the great novelist - the English language's most revered writer after William Shakespeare - that streaming giant Netflix will be adding to its endless carousel of episodes of Bridgerton, Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game a shiny new "period-faithful" Pride and Prejudice miniseries billed as "both familiar and fresh". Also riding new generational waves of Austen adulation: movie makers Focus Features and Working Title Films, producers of the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice with its pulse-quickening, meme-worthy "hand flex" scene, who are shooting a new Sense and Sensibility feature film. Meanwhile, the BBC, which in 1995 gave us the definitive screen rendering of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth in a blush-makingly wet shirt as Mr Darcy, is pumping out multiple TV treatments, including the documentary Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and costume dramas Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister. Next month audiobook and podcast giant Audible takes Pride and Prejudice for its own spin around the ballroom in six languages, promising "cinematic sound design" and Marisa Abela, Harris Dickinson, Bill Nighy and Glenn Close leading the English-speaking cast. And, of course, the Austen-related books just keep coming in 2025: from a graphic novel depicting her life, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography by Professor Janine Barchas and illustrator Isabel Greenberg; to Jane Austen's Garden by Molly Williams, a botanical tour of Austen's era and novels; to the upcoming Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women, a collection of snarky witticisms compiled by Emily Reed; and Wild for Austen, American scholar Devoney Looser's subversive revision of Austen's image as a prim and proper spinster. More in a moment on the new screen Austens and their popular forerunners; the adaptations, extrapolations and reimaginings that help make way more visible - and more beloved - than any other novelist before or since a woman forced by the conventions of her day to publish her writing anonymously. First, some beneficent words of rapture and wise counsel from two distinguished patrons of all things Austen. Says Pamela Whalan, Austen scholar, lecturer and playwright: "I am a firm believer that nothing really replaces the reading of Austen's novels". The precious word "reading", of course, is given special emphasis in this declaration. Such Elizabeth Bennet-like prejudice from someone who has so proudly, painstakingly translated the language, characters, settings, emotions and insights of all six Austen novels into stage plays! "That might seem hypocritical considering I have adapted them for the stage," she explains. "But I see any adaptation as an introduction rather than a substitution for the delight of Austen's written word." Susannah Fullerton, literary historian, author of the memoir Jane & I: A Tale of Austen Addiction and president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for "what seems like an age", concurs. "Everybody should read Jane Austen," she says. "Picking up what can look like a dusty old classic in the library or the bookshop can be off-putting for some people, which is such a shame because they're missing out on what I think is one of life's great literary experiences. There is just so much in these stories and characters to bring young people in particular back to reading." READ MORE: Sydney-based Ms Fullerton recently returned from the Global Jane Austen conference in the UK, where she presented on Austen "tourism". In October she will welcome guest speakers from the US and Norway to the society's annual conference in Canberra, a special celebration of "250 glorious years" of Austen. Before then, she will deliver a livestreamed public lecture on the writer's legacy at the National Library of Australia on August 20. "It really is very hard to keep up with everything that's happening this year in the Jane Austen world," she said. Which begs the question: why does Austen enjoy such unending appeal? "She makes us laugh, which in this sad world we're living in at the moment is very important," Ms Fullerton said. "She writes the world's greatest love stories and people love romance and a happy ending. And the quality of her prose - you never feel with Jane Austen that the editor should've gone through it with a red pen and, in this day and age of emojis and text messages and rather mangled English, it's a joy to read her beautifully written sentences. "For me, the major reason I go back to her books again and again is her phenomenal understanding of what makes people tick, of human nature. And that hasn't changed in the more than 200 years since she published her books. I think everybody knows characters like the ones Jane Austen created. You know, hypochondriac or stingy characters or people who talk too much like Miss Bates [from Emma]. "She really nails human nature and, while her characters might obviously be in bonnets and gowns and breeches, nothing much has changed about people and the things they do and what makes them behave the way they do." Ms Whalan, a Newcastle-based member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for more than 30 years, has had her Austen plays published and performed in Australia and the US. "Jane Austen had a wonderful power of observation," she said. "She understood how people thought, behaved, needed, wanted. She was a realist and an optimist but was not a romantic. Her characters are based on normal people - people you could recognise as you go about your normal daily routine. "Times and society change but human nature does not. A woman who was worried about her future security and the security of her family is recognisable and creates sympathy even if the circumstances and solutions vary from time and place." Ms Whalan's favourite novel is Persuasion ("it has a bittersweet reality"), Emma is "absolute perfection when considering plot construction" and Sense and Sensibility shows Austen was grounded more "in the world of reality than romance". The opening line of Pride and Prejudice may be ingrained on the memories of the many millions who have read it over the centuries (''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"), but she does not rank the "light and frothy" novel as one of Austen's best. "Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful beginning but it is only the start of the Austen adventure," she said. "Remember, she wrote five other full-length novels as well as novella and the absolutely wonderful wicked and witty juvenilia." And yet, of all of the many Austen screen adaptations, the 1995 BBC TV version of the book is perhaps "the best reflection of her writing". The popularity of that series helped double the membership of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which is why, like her literary heroine, Ms Whalan is a realist about the role films and TV play in bringing new audiences to Austen. "A visual presentation can act as an introduction to the enjoyment and understanding of an Austen novel," she said. "Film and television adaptations can provide a modern audience with information the novel does not, and never meant to, provide. Such adaptations are an entry point into a world [of different] clothing, manners, morals, daily life and language. [They] have the freedom to roam about the countryside and show us the grandeur of large social gatherings. But sometimes, in bringing us such visual splendour, they stray away from Miss Austen's focus on human beings." Ms Fullerton, too, admits to struggling with screen translations of the novelist's work. "It's always nice to see a well-made adaptation - it's a real pleasure," she says. An admirer of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice ("a very fine adaptation. It stuck very closely to the book and it had excellent acting"), she regards Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility film of the same year as her favourite screen Austen. "I think Emma Thompson did that wonderfully and it's the one I really love, so hopefully they will get it right with future versions," she said. Some subsequent screen Austens she describes as "totally disastrous". "You think 'Why did people bother?' I don't mind small changes from the book. Obviously that's going to happen when you're transferring a book to the screen and sometimes happens for good reasons. But when you make endless changes you think 'Why bother making a Jane Austen when you are cutting the novel to shreds?' So that really does upset me." Ms Fullerton cherishes Emma as "the total masterpiece" ("It's the world's greatest novel. I don't think one word of it could be changed to improve it in any way whatsoever.") but recommends the "totally gorgeous" Pride and Prejudice for newcomers: "If somebody's never read Jane Austen, that's a very, very good place to start". She hopes Netflix isn't tempted to tweak it too much to reach the TikTok generation: "I think the novel already does that - it talks to young people who are looking for good partners in their lives, who have to think about their careers and their financial security. "A complete modernisation, something like Clueless which was clever indeed in its treatment of Emma, can make sense but otherwise stick to the book, follow the norms of the era [and] all the things that concern Austen are still concerns young people in particular have in their everyday lives today". Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh of eight children and cherished her father Reverend George Austen's extensive library. When her father died in 1805, Jane, her mother and her only sister Cassandra were left financially dependent on their male relatives. She wrote most of her novels before she had turned 22, but the first was not published until she was 35. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816) were modest successes in her lifetime but published without her name on them. The author was identified only as "A Lady". Two other novels - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion - were published posthumously, following her death, aged 41, in Winchester on July 18, 1817. She also left behind the epistolary novella Lady Susan, two unfinished novels, Sanditon and The Watsons, her juvenile writing and hundreds of letters. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where she lived for the last eight years of her life is now a museum, Jane Austen's House. Miss Austen: Now showing on the ABC and ABC iView, this four-part BBC drama stars Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, who was responsible for what some consider to be literature's greatest act of vandalism - destroying almost all of sister Jane's correspondence. Of an estimated 3000 letters, only about 160 survive - the rest burned to protect the writer's reputation and privacy. Gill Hornby's novel gets the full-blown Jane Austen period drama treatment, with Patsy Ferran as the young author and Synnove Karlsen as the younger Cassie. Hornby has said: "The fact that - thanks to Cassandra's bonfire - we know so little about the author has proved wildly successful. That element of mysterious, quiet dignity is crucial to the success of the Jane Austen brand". Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: Screening in selected cinemas, this Bridget Jones' Diary-esque French rom-com follows a desperately single bookshop keeper to a writers' retreat as she chases her Austen-influenced dream of becoming a romance novelist - and finding her own happily-ever-after. Pride and Prejudice (Audible series): This audio adaptation features the voices of Babygirl's Harris Dickinson as Darcy, Marisa Abela (who was singer Amy Winehouse in 2024 biopic Back to Black) as Elizabeth, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Mr and Mrs Bennet and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Dropping worldwide on September 9 and promising "cinematic sound design", the producers say their retelling will remain "faithful to the original text" while adding a "unique interior perspective" from Lizzie. Sense and Sensibility (feature film): Focus Features and Working Title Films, which collaborated on 2005's Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Anya Taylor-Joy version of Emma, are back in the Austen business with Daisy Edgar-Jones (star of acclaimed TV romance Normal People and 2024 film Twisters) in the lead role of Elinor Dashwood. Outlander's Esme Creed-Miles plays her sister Marianne, Outlander's Caitrona Balfe is Mrs Dashwood and George MacKay (from the Sam Mendes war saga 1917) is Elinor's love interest, Edward Ferrars. You'll recall in the 1995 version that Emma Thompson played Elinor, Kate Winslet was Marianne and Hugh Grant was Edward. The new script is by Australian author Diana Reid. Pride and Prejudice (Netflix series): Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown and Connie in Netflix's 2022 film of Lady Chatterley's Lover, is Elizabeth Bennet (and also an executive producer) for this six-part series. Billed as a "faithful, classic adaptation", it also stars Jack Lowden as Darcy and The Favourite's Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. "Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it," screenwriter Dolly Alderton has said. "I am so excited to reintroduce these hilarious and complicated characters to those who count Pride and Prejudice as their favourite book, and those who are yet to meet their Lizzie and Mr Darcy." Pride and Prejudice (1995): Incredibly, it's 30 years since the BBC's impeccably faithful, six-hour adaptation starring Firth and Ehle thrust Austen back into popular culture. Screenwriter Andrew Davies added a scene with Darcy emerging from a pond in a wet shirt, which made Firth a screen heartthrob. Alison Steadman gives the standout performance as the insufferably grasping Mrs Bennet. Where to watch: Stream it now on Stan, BritBox or Apple TV. Also in the 1990s: Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility (1995) directed by Ang Lee; duelling 1996 versions of Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale; Notting Hill director Roger Michell's 1995 Persuasion; Aussie actress Frances O'Connor in Mansfield Park (1999); and Clueless (1995), the spirited Beverly Hills teen twist on Emma starring Alicia Silverstone. Pride & Prejudice (2005): Grittier, sweatier and muddier than the 1995 series, director Joe Wright's film is returning to selected Australian cinemas for its 20th anniversary. It stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, with Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn. Wright's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cutaway shot to Mr Darcy's "hand flex" after holding feisty Lizze's hand continues to provide ardent fans with TikTok's favourite visual shorthand for intense romantic yearning and frisson. Where to watch: In selected cinemas or stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel or Apple TV. Also in the 2000s: Renee Zellwegger torn between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant in 2001's Pride and Prejudice-inspired Bridget Jones's Diary; Bollywood musical comedy Bride and Prejudice (2005), an exuberant song-and-dance romance starring former Miss World Aishwarya Rai; Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan in a Northanger Abbey (2007) scripted by Andrew Davies; the four-part Emma (2009) starring Romola Garai as Emma Woodhouse, Michael Gambon as her father and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) starring Lily James; Kate Beckinsale in Love and Friendship (2016), based on early Austen work Lady Susan; the series Sanditon, with screenwriter Davies completing Austen's unfinished manuscript (2020-23); the unnecessary but extravagantly styled 2020 version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy; and Dakota Johnson's not-very-persuasive Persuasion (2022). Vinyl revival: Decca Records has released the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie soundtrack on vinyl for the first time to mark the film's 20th anniversary. The Oscar-nominated score was composed by Dario Marianelli and performed by acclaimed pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra. Lizzy, Darcy & Jane: This play by Joanna Norland draws on key events in Austen's life, including her romance with Tom Lefroy in 1796 and Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal in 1801, to playfully imagine what influenced the 20-year-old writer as she began a story in 1796 titled First Impressions, which would later become Pride and Prejudice. At Canberra REP Theatre from September 4-20. Pride and Prejudice by Bloomshed: This "raucous" stage production is billed as "searing social satire dressed as a period drama" with some modern angst woven in, including questions about the housing crisis, the institution of marriage, the meaning of love and the power of rom-coms and reality TV. Bloomshed's retelling ("With the cost of living rising, and Mr Bennet played by a potted monstera, how will the Bennet family hold onto their precarious position on the property ladder?") plays in Melbourne and Geelong in August and Canberra Theatre Centre in October. Jane Austen and her legacy: Susannah Fullerton delivers a public lecture exploring what makes Austen the world's favourite female novelist 250 years after her birth. This free event at the National Library of Australia in Canberra from 6pm-7pm on August 20 will be livestreamed. Bookings are essential. 250 Glorious Years: Jane Austen's Legacy: The annual 2025 conference of the Jane Austen Society of Australia in Canberra on the weekend of October 31-November 2 will feature presentations by Wild for Austen author Devoney Looser of Arizona State University, Norwegian Professor of English Literature Dr Marie Nedregotten Sorbo and Dr William Christie, Professor Emeritus at Australian National University, among other speakers. The Saturday evening dinner will include a demonstration of Regency dancing (Regency dress is welcome, but not required!). For details visit: Netflix is doing a new Pride and Prejudice. A fresh Sense and Sensibility film is on the way too. We ask the experts why we still so ardently admire and love Jane Austen 250 years after her birth. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a streaming service or movie studio or book publisher in want of a good fortune must be in possession of a hot new take on Jane Austen. And so it is, in this 250th year since the birth of the great novelist - the English language's most revered writer after William Shakespeare - that streaming giant Netflix will be adding to its endless carousel of episodes of Bridgerton, Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game a shiny new "period-faithful" Pride and Prejudice miniseries billed as "both familiar and fresh". Also riding new generational waves of Austen adulation: movie makers Focus Features and Working Title Films, producers of the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice with its pulse-quickening, meme-worthy "hand flex" scene, who are shooting a new Sense and Sensibility feature film. Meanwhile, the BBC, which in 1995 gave us the definitive screen rendering of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth in a blush-makingly wet shirt as Mr Darcy, is pumping out multiple TV treatments, including the documentary Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and costume dramas Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister. Next month audiobook and podcast giant Audible takes Pride and Prejudice for its own spin around the ballroom in six languages, promising "cinematic sound design" and Marisa Abela, Harris Dickinson, Bill Nighy and Glenn Close leading the English-speaking cast. And, of course, the Austen-related books just keep coming in 2025: from a graphic novel depicting her life, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography by Professor Janine Barchas and illustrator Isabel Greenberg; to Jane Austen's Garden by Molly Williams, a botanical tour of Austen's era and novels; to the upcoming Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women, a collection of snarky witticisms compiled by Emily Reed; and Wild for Austen, American scholar Devoney Looser's subversive revision of Austen's image as a prim and proper spinster. More in a moment on the new screen Austens and their popular forerunners; the adaptations, extrapolations and reimaginings that help make way more visible - and more beloved - than any other novelist before or since a woman forced by the conventions of her day to publish her writing anonymously. First, some beneficent words of rapture and wise counsel from two distinguished patrons of all things Austen. Says Pamela Whalan, Austen scholar, lecturer and playwright: "I am a firm believer that nothing really replaces the reading of Austen's novels". The precious word "reading", of course, is given special emphasis in this declaration. Such Elizabeth Bennet-like prejudice from someone who has so proudly, painstakingly translated the language, characters, settings, emotions and insights of all six Austen novels into stage plays! "That might seem hypocritical considering I have adapted them for the stage," she explains. "But I see any adaptation as an introduction rather than a substitution for the delight of Austen's written word." Susannah Fullerton, literary historian, author of the memoir Jane & I: A Tale of Austen Addiction and president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for "what seems like an age", concurs. "Everybody should read Jane Austen," she says. "Picking up what can look like a dusty old classic in the library or the bookshop can be off-putting for some people, which is such a shame because they're missing out on what I think is one of life's great literary experiences. There is just so much in these stories and characters to bring young people in particular back to reading." READ MORE: Sydney-based Ms Fullerton recently returned from the Global Jane Austen conference in the UK, where she presented on Austen "tourism". In October she will welcome guest speakers from the US and Norway to the society's annual conference in Canberra, a special celebration of "250 glorious years" of Austen. Before then, she will deliver a livestreamed public lecture on the writer's legacy at the National Library of Australia on August 20. "It really is very hard to keep up with everything that's happening this year in the Jane Austen world," she said. Which begs the question: why does Austen enjoy such unending appeal? "She makes us laugh, which in this sad world we're living in at the moment is very important," Ms Fullerton said. "She writes the world's greatest love stories and people love romance and a happy ending. And the quality of her prose - you never feel with Jane Austen that the editor should've gone through it with a red pen and, in this day and age of emojis and text messages and rather mangled English, it's a joy to read her beautifully written sentences. "For me, the major reason I go back to her books again and again is her phenomenal understanding of what makes people tick, of human nature. And that hasn't changed in the more than 200 years since she published her books. I think everybody knows characters like the ones Jane Austen created. You know, hypochondriac or stingy characters or people who talk too much like Miss Bates [from Emma]. "She really nails human nature and, while her characters might obviously be in bonnets and gowns and breeches, nothing much has changed about people and the things they do and what makes them behave the way they do." Ms Whalan, a Newcastle-based member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for more than 30 years, has had her Austen plays published and performed in Australia and the US. "Jane Austen had a wonderful power of observation," she said. "She understood how people thought, behaved, needed, wanted. She was a realist and an optimist but was not a romantic. Her characters are based on normal people - people you could recognise as you go about your normal daily routine. "Times and society change but human nature does not. A woman who was worried about her future security and the security of her family is recognisable and creates sympathy even if the circumstances and solutions vary from time and place." Ms Whalan's favourite novel is Persuasion ("it has a bittersweet reality"), Emma is "absolute perfection when considering plot construction" and Sense and Sensibility shows Austen was grounded more "in the world of reality than romance". The opening line of Pride and Prejudice may be ingrained on the memories of the many millions who have read it over the centuries (''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"), but she does not rank the "light and frothy" novel as one of Austen's best. "Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful beginning but it is only the start of the Austen adventure," she said. "Remember, she wrote five other full-length novels as well as novella and the absolutely wonderful wicked and witty juvenilia." And yet, of all of the many Austen screen adaptations, the 1995 BBC TV version of the book is perhaps "the best reflection of her writing". The popularity of that series helped double the membership of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which is why, like her literary heroine, Ms Whalan is a realist about the role films and TV play in bringing new audiences to Austen. "A visual presentation can act as an introduction to the enjoyment and understanding of an Austen novel," she said. "Film and television adaptations can provide a modern audience with information the novel does not, and never meant to, provide. Such adaptations are an entry point into a world [of different] clothing, manners, morals, daily life and language. [They] have the freedom to roam about the countryside and show us the grandeur of large social gatherings. But sometimes, in bringing us such visual splendour, they stray away from Miss Austen's focus on human beings." Ms Fullerton, too, admits to struggling with screen translations of the novelist's work. "It's always nice to see a well-made adaptation - it's a real pleasure," she says. An admirer of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice ("a very fine adaptation. It stuck very closely to the book and it had excellent acting"), she regards Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility film of the same year as her favourite screen Austen. "I think Emma Thompson did that wonderfully and it's the one I really love, so hopefully they will get it right with future versions," she said. Some subsequent screen Austens she describes as "totally disastrous". "You think 'Why did people bother?' I don't mind small changes from the book. Obviously that's going to happen when you're transferring a book to the screen and sometimes happens for good reasons. But when you make endless changes you think 'Why bother making a Jane Austen when you are cutting the novel to shreds?' So that really does upset me." Ms Fullerton cherishes Emma as "the total masterpiece" ("It's the world's greatest novel. I don't think one word of it could be changed to improve it in any way whatsoever.") but recommends the "totally gorgeous" Pride and Prejudice for newcomers: "If somebody's never read Jane Austen, that's a very, very good place to start". She hopes Netflix isn't tempted to tweak it too much to reach the TikTok generation: "I think the novel already does that - it talks to young people who are looking for good partners in their lives, who have to think about their careers and their financial security. "A complete modernisation, something like Clueless which was clever indeed in its treatment of Emma, can make sense but otherwise stick to the book, follow the norms of the era [and] all the things that concern Austen are still concerns young people in particular have in their everyday lives today". Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh of eight children and cherished her father Reverend George Austen's extensive library. When her father died in 1805, Jane, her mother and her only sister Cassandra were left financially dependent on their male relatives. She wrote most of her novels before she had turned 22, but the first was not published until she was 35. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816) were modest successes in her lifetime but published without her name on them. The author was identified only as "A Lady". Two other novels - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion - were published posthumously, following her death, aged 41, in Winchester on July 18, 1817. She also left behind the epistolary novella Lady Susan, two unfinished novels, Sanditon and The Watsons, her juvenile writing and hundreds of letters. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where she lived for the last eight years of her life is now a museum, Jane Austen's House. Miss Austen: Now showing on the ABC and ABC iView, this four-part BBC drama stars Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, who was responsible for what some consider to be literature's greatest act of vandalism - destroying almost all of sister Jane's correspondence. Of an estimated 3000 letters, only about 160 survive - the rest burned to protect the writer's reputation and privacy. Gill Hornby's novel gets the full-blown Jane Austen period drama treatment, with Patsy Ferran as the young author and Synnove Karlsen as the younger Cassie. Hornby has said: "The fact that - thanks to Cassandra's bonfire - we know so little about the author has proved wildly successful. That element of mysterious, quiet dignity is crucial to the success of the Jane Austen brand". Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: Screening in selected cinemas, this Bridget Jones' Diary-esque French rom-com follows a desperately single bookshop keeper to a writers' retreat as she chases her Austen-influenced dream of becoming a romance novelist - and finding her own happily-ever-after. Pride and Prejudice (Audible series): This audio adaptation features the voices of Babygirl's Harris Dickinson as Darcy, Marisa Abela (who was singer Amy Winehouse in 2024 biopic Back to Black) as Elizabeth, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Mr and Mrs Bennet and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Dropping worldwide on September 9 and promising "cinematic sound design", the producers say their retelling will remain "faithful to the original text" while adding a "unique interior perspective" from Lizzie. Sense and Sensibility (feature film): Focus Features and Working Title Films, which collaborated on 2005's Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Anya Taylor-Joy version of Emma, are back in the Austen business with Daisy Edgar-Jones (star of acclaimed TV romance Normal People and 2024 film Twisters) in the lead role of Elinor Dashwood. Outlander's Esme Creed-Miles plays her sister Marianne, Outlander's Caitrona Balfe is Mrs Dashwood and George MacKay (from the Sam Mendes war saga 1917) is Elinor's love interest, Edward Ferrars. You'll recall in the 1995 version that Emma Thompson played Elinor, Kate Winslet was Marianne and Hugh Grant was Edward. The new script is by Australian author Diana Reid. Pride and Prejudice (Netflix series): Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown and Connie in Netflix's 2022 film of Lady Chatterley's Lover, is Elizabeth Bennet (and also an executive producer) for this six-part series. Billed as a "faithful, classic adaptation", it also stars Jack Lowden as Darcy and The Favourite's Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. "Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it," screenwriter Dolly Alderton has said. "I am so excited to reintroduce these hilarious and complicated characters to those who count Pride and Prejudice as their favourite book, and those who are yet to meet their Lizzie and Mr Darcy." Pride and Prejudice (1995): Incredibly, it's 30 years since the BBC's impeccably faithful, six-hour adaptation starring Firth and Ehle thrust Austen back into popular culture. Screenwriter Andrew Davies added a scene with Darcy emerging from a pond in a wet shirt, which made Firth a screen heartthrob. Alison Steadman gives the standout performance as the insufferably grasping Mrs Bennet. Where to watch: Stream it now on Stan, BritBox or Apple TV. Also in the 1990s: Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility (1995) directed by Ang Lee; duelling 1996 versions of Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale; Notting Hill director Roger Michell's 1995 Persuasion; Aussie actress Frances O'Connor in Mansfield Park (1999); and Clueless (1995), the spirited Beverly Hills teen twist on Emma starring Alicia Silverstone. Pride & Prejudice (2005): Grittier, sweatier and muddier than the 1995 series, director Joe Wright's film is returning to selected Australian cinemas for its 20th anniversary. It stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, with Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn. Wright's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cutaway shot to Mr Darcy's "hand flex" after holding feisty Lizze's hand continues to provide ardent fans with TikTok's favourite visual shorthand for intense romantic yearning and frisson. Where to watch: In selected cinemas or stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel or Apple TV. Also in the 2000s: Renee Zellwegger torn between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant in 2001's Pride and Prejudice-inspired Bridget Jones's Diary; Bollywood musical comedy Bride and Prejudice (2005), an exuberant song-and-dance romance starring former Miss World Aishwarya Rai; Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan in a Northanger Abbey (2007) scripted by Andrew Davies; the four-part Emma (2009) starring Romola Garai as Emma Woodhouse, Michael Gambon as her father and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) starring Lily James; Kate Beckinsale in Love and Friendship (2016), based on early Austen work Lady Susan; the series Sanditon, with screenwriter Davies completing Austen's unfinished manuscript (2020-23); the unnecessary but extravagantly styled 2020 version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy; and Dakota Johnson's not-very-persuasive Persuasion (2022). Vinyl revival: Decca Records has released the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie soundtrack on vinyl for the first time to mark the film's 20th anniversary. The Oscar-nominated score was composed by Dario Marianelli and performed by acclaimed pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra. Lizzy, Darcy & Jane: This play by Joanna Norland draws on key events in Austen's life, including her romance with Tom Lefroy in 1796 and Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal in 1801, to playfully imagine what influenced the 20-year-old writer as she began a story in 1796 titled First Impressions, which would later become Pride and Prejudice. At Canberra REP Theatre from September 4-20. Pride and Prejudice by Bloomshed: This "raucous" stage production is billed as "searing social satire dressed as a period drama" with some modern angst woven in, including questions about the housing crisis, the institution of marriage, the meaning of love and the power of rom-coms and reality TV. Bloomshed's retelling ("With the cost of living rising, and Mr Bennet played by a potted monstera, how will the Bennet family hold onto their precarious position on the property ladder?") plays in Melbourne and Geelong in August and Canberra Theatre Centre in October. Jane Austen and her legacy: Susannah Fullerton delivers a public lecture exploring what makes Austen the world's favourite female novelist 250 years after her birth. This free event at the National Library of Australia in Canberra from 6pm-7pm on August 20 will be livestreamed. Bookings are essential. 250 Glorious Years: Jane Austen's Legacy: The annual 2025 conference of the Jane Austen Society of Australia in Canberra on the weekend of October 31-November 2 will feature presentations by Wild for Austen author Devoney Looser of Arizona State University, Norwegian Professor of English Literature Dr Marie Nedregotten Sorbo and Dr William Christie, Professor Emeritus at Australian National University, among other speakers. The Saturday evening dinner will include a demonstration of Regency dancing (Regency dress is welcome, but not required!). For details visit: Netflix is doing a new Pride and Prejudice. A fresh Sense and Sensibility film is on the way too. We ask the experts why we still so ardently admire and love Jane Austen 250 years after her birth. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a streaming service or movie studio or book publisher in want of a good fortune must be in possession of a hot new take on Jane Austen. And so it is, in this 250th year since the birth of the great novelist - the English language's most revered writer after William Shakespeare - that streaming giant Netflix will be adding to its endless carousel of episodes of Bridgerton, Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game a shiny new "period-faithful" Pride and Prejudice miniseries billed as "both familiar and fresh". Also riding new generational waves of Austen adulation: movie makers Focus Features and Working Title Films, producers of the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice with its pulse-quickening, meme-worthy "hand flex" scene, who are shooting a new Sense and Sensibility feature film. Meanwhile, the BBC, which in 1995 gave us the definitive screen rendering of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth in a blush-makingly wet shirt as Mr Darcy, is pumping out multiple TV treatments, including the documentary Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and costume dramas Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister. Next month audiobook and podcast giant Audible takes Pride and Prejudice for its own spin around the ballroom in six languages, promising "cinematic sound design" and Marisa Abela, Harris Dickinson, Bill Nighy and Glenn Close leading the English-speaking cast. And, of course, the Austen-related books just keep coming in 2025: from a graphic novel depicting her life, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography by Professor Janine Barchas and illustrator Isabel Greenberg; to Jane Austen's Garden by Molly Williams, a botanical tour of Austen's era and novels; to the upcoming Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women, a collection of snarky witticisms compiled by Emily Reed; and Wild for Austen, American scholar Devoney Looser's subversive revision of Austen's image as a prim and proper spinster. More in a moment on the new screen Austens and their popular forerunners; the adaptations, extrapolations and reimaginings that help make way more visible - and more beloved - than any other novelist before or since a woman forced by the conventions of her day to publish her writing anonymously. First, some beneficent words of rapture and wise counsel from two distinguished patrons of all things Austen. Says Pamela Whalan, Austen scholar, lecturer and playwright: "I am a firm believer that nothing really replaces the reading of Austen's novels". The precious word "reading", of course, is given special emphasis in this declaration. Such Elizabeth Bennet-like prejudice from someone who has so proudly, painstakingly translated the language, characters, settings, emotions and insights of all six Austen novels into stage plays! "That might seem hypocritical considering I have adapted them for the stage," she explains. "But I see any adaptation as an introduction rather than a substitution for the delight of Austen's written word." Susannah Fullerton, literary historian, author of the memoir Jane & I: A Tale of Austen Addiction and president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for "what seems like an age", concurs. "Everybody should read Jane Austen," she says. "Picking up what can look like a dusty old classic in the library or the bookshop can be off-putting for some people, which is such a shame because they're missing out on what I think is one of life's great literary experiences. There is just so much in these stories and characters to bring young people in particular back to reading." READ MORE: Sydney-based Ms Fullerton recently returned from the Global Jane Austen conference in the UK, where she presented on Austen "tourism". In October she will welcome guest speakers from the US and Norway to the society's annual conference in Canberra, a special celebration of "250 glorious years" of Austen. Before then, she will deliver a livestreamed public lecture on the writer's legacy at the National Library of Australia on August 20. "It really is very hard to keep up with everything that's happening this year in the Jane Austen world," she said. Which begs the question: why does Austen enjoy such unending appeal? "She makes us laugh, which in this sad world we're living in at the moment is very important," Ms Fullerton said. "She writes the world's greatest love stories and people love romance and a happy ending. And the quality of her prose - you never feel with Jane Austen that the editor should've gone through it with a red pen and, in this day and age of emojis and text messages and rather mangled English, it's a joy to read her beautifully written sentences. "For me, the major reason I go back to her books again and again is her phenomenal understanding of what makes people tick, of human nature. And that hasn't changed in the more than 200 years since she published her books. I think everybody knows characters like the ones Jane Austen created. You know, hypochondriac or stingy characters or people who talk too much like Miss Bates [from Emma]. "She really nails human nature and, while her characters might obviously be in bonnets and gowns and breeches, nothing much has changed about people and the things they do and what makes them behave the way they do." Ms Whalan, a Newcastle-based member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for more than 30 years, has had her Austen plays published and performed in Australia and the US. "Jane Austen had a wonderful power of observation," she said. "She understood how people thought, behaved, needed, wanted. She was a realist and an optimist but was not a romantic. Her characters are based on normal people - people you could recognise as you go about your normal daily routine. "Times and society change but human nature does not. A woman who was worried about her future security and the security of her family is recognisable and creates sympathy even if the circumstances and solutions vary from time and place." Ms Whalan's favourite novel is Persuasion ("it has a bittersweet reality"), Emma is "absolute perfection when considering plot construction" and Sense and Sensibility shows Austen was grounded more "in the world of reality than romance". The opening line of Pride and Prejudice may be ingrained on the memories of the many millions who have read it over the centuries (''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"), but she does not rank the "light and frothy" novel as one of Austen's best. "Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful beginning but it is only the start of the Austen adventure," she said. "Remember, she wrote five other full-length novels as well as novella and the absolutely wonderful wicked and witty juvenilia." And yet, of all of the many Austen screen adaptations, the 1995 BBC TV version of the book is perhaps "the best reflection of her writing". The popularity of that series helped double the membership of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which is why, like her literary heroine, Ms Whalan is a realist about the role films and TV play in bringing new audiences to Austen. "A visual presentation can act as an introduction to the enjoyment and understanding of an Austen novel," she said. "Film and television adaptations can provide a modern audience with information the novel does not, and never meant to, provide. Such adaptations are an entry point into a world [of different] clothing, manners, morals, daily life and language. [They] have the freedom to roam about the countryside and show us the grandeur of large social gatherings. But sometimes, in bringing us such visual splendour, they stray away from Miss Austen's focus on human beings." Ms Fullerton, too, admits to struggling with screen translations of the novelist's work. "It's always nice to see a well-made adaptation - it's a real pleasure," she says. An admirer of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice ("a very fine adaptation. It stuck very closely to the book and it had excellent acting"), she regards Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility film of the same year as her favourite screen Austen. "I think Emma Thompson did that wonderfully and it's the one I really love, so hopefully they will get it right with future versions," she said. Some subsequent screen Austens she describes as "totally disastrous". "You think 'Why did people bother?' I don't mind small changes from the book. Obviously that's going to happen when you're transferring a book to the screen and sometimes happens for good reasons. But when you make endless changes you think 'Why bother making a Jane Austen when you are cutting the novel to shreds?' So that really does upset me." Ms Fullerton cherishes Emma as "the total masterpiece" ("It's the world's greatest novel. I don't think one word of it could be changed to improve it in any way whatsoever.") but recommends the "totally gorgeous" Pride and Prejudice for newcomers: "If somebody's never read Jane Austen, that's a very, very good place to start". She hopes Netflix isn't tempted to tweak it too much to reach the TikTok generation: "I think the novel already does that - it talks to young people who are looking for good partners in their lives, who have to think about their careers and their financial security. "A complete modernisation, something like Clueless which was clever indeed in its treatment of Emma, can make sense but otherwise stick to the book, follow the norms of the era [and] all the things that concern Austen are still concerns young people in particular have in their everyday lives today". Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh of eight children and cherished her father Reverend George Austen's extensive library. When her father died in 1805, Jane, her mother and her only sister Cassandra were left financially dependent on their male relatives. She wrote most of her novels before she had turned 22, but the first was not published until she was 35. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816) were modest successes in her lifetime but published without her name on them. The author was identified only as "A Lady". Two other novels - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion - were published posthumously, following her death, aged 41, in Winchester on July 18, 1817. She also left behind the epistolary novella Lady Susan, two unfinished novels, Sanditon and The Watsons, her juvenile writing and hundreds of letters. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where she lived for the last eight years of her life is now a museum, Jane Austen's House. Miss Austen: Now showing on the ABC and ABC iView, this four-part BBC drama stars Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, who was responsible for what some consider to be literature's greatest act of vandalism - destroying almost all of sister Jane's correspondence. Of an estimated 3000 letters, only about 160 survive - the rest burned to protect the writer's reputation and privacy. Gill Hornby's novel gets the full-blown Jane Austen period drama treatment, with Patsy Ferran as the young author and Synnove Karlsen as the younger Cassie. Hornby has said: "The fact that - thanks to Cassandra's bonfire - we know so little about the author has proved wildly successful. That element of mysterious, quiet dignity is crucial to the success of the Jane Austen brand". Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: Screening in selected cinemas, this Bridget Jones' Diary-esque French rom-com follows a desperately single bookshop keeper to a writers' retreat as she chases her Austen-influenced dream of becoming a romance novelist - and finding her own happily-ever-after. Pride and Prejudice (Audible series): This audio adaptation features the voices of Babygirl's Harris Dickinson as Darcy, Marisa Abela (who was singer Amy Winehouse in 2024 biopic Back to Black) as Elizabeth, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Mr and Mrs Bennet and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Dropping worldwide on September 9 and promising "cinematic sound design", the producers say their retelling will remain "faithful to the original text" while adding a "unique interior perspective" from Lizzie. Sense and Sensibility (feature film): Focus Features and Working Title Films, which collaborated on 2005's Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Anya Taylor-Joy version of Emma, are back in the Austen business with Daisy Edgar-Jones (star of acclaimed TV romance Normal People and 2024 film Twisters) in the lead role of Elinor Dashwood. Outlander's Esme Creed-Miles plays her sister Marianne, Outlander's Caitrona Balfe is Mrs Dashwood and George MacKay (from the Sam Mendes war saga 1917) is Elinor's love interest, Edward Ferrars. You'll recall in the 1995 version that Emma Thompson played Elinor, Kate Winslet was Marianne and Hugh Grant was Edward. The new script is by Australian author Diana Reid. Pride and Prejudice (Netflix series): Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown and Connie in Netflix's 2022 film of Lady Chatterley's Lover, is Elizabeth Bennet (and also an executive producer) for this six-part series. Billed as a "faithful, classic adaptation", it also stars Jack Lowden as Darcy and The Favourite's Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. "Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it," screenwriter Dolly Alderton has said. "I am so excited to reintroduce these hilarious and complicated characters to those who count Pride and Prejudice as their favourite book, and those who are yet to meet their Lizzie and Mr Darcy." Pride and Prejudice (1995): Incredibly, it's 30 years since the BBC's impeccably faithful, six-hour adaptation starring Firth and Ehle thrust Austen back into popular culture. Screenwriter Andrew Davies added a scene with Darcy emerging from a pond in a wet shirt, which made Firth a screen heartthrob. Alison Steadman gives the standout performance as the insufferably grasping Mrs Bennet. Where to watch: Stream it now on Stan, BritBox or Apple TV. Also in the 1990s: Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility (1995) directed by Ang Lee; duelling 1996 versions of Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale; Notting Hill director Roger Michell's 1995 Persuasion; Aussie actress Frances O'Connor in Mansfield Park (1999); and Clueless (1995), the spirited Beverly Hills teen twist on Emma starring Alicia Silverstone. Pride & Prejudice (2005): Grittier, sweatier and muddier than the 1995 series, director Joe Wright's film is returning to selected Australian cinemas for its 20th anniversary. It stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, with Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn. Wright's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cutaway shot to Mr Darcy's "hand flex" after holding feisty Lizze's hand continues to provide ardent fans with TikTok's favourite visual shorthand for intense romantic yearning and frisson. Where to watch: In selected cinemas or stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel or Apple TV. Also in the 2000s: Renee Zellwegger torn between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant in 2001's Pride and Prejudice-inspired Bridget Jones's Diary; Bollywood musical comedy Bride and Prejudice (2005), an exuberant song-and-dance romance starring former Miss World Aishwarya Rai; Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan in a Northanger Abbey (2007) scripted by Andrew Davies; the four-part Emma (2009) starring Romola Garai as Emma Woodhouse, Michael Gambon as her father and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) starring Lily James; Kate Beckinsale in Love and Friendship (2016), based on early Austen work Lady Susan; the series Sanditon, with screenwriter Davies completing Austen's unfinished manuscript (2020-23); the unnecessary but extravagantly styled 2020 version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy; and Dakota Johnson's not-very-persuasive Persuasion (2022). Vinyl revival: Decca Records has released the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie soundtrack on vinyl for the first time to mark the film's 20th anniversary. The Oscar-nominated score was composed by Dario Marianelli and performed by acclaimed pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra. Lizzy, Darcy & Jane: This play by Joanna Norland draws on key events in Austen's life, including her romance with Tom Lefroy in 1796 and Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal in 1801, to playfully imagine what influenced the 20-year-old writer as she began a story in 1796 titled First Impressions, which would later become Pride and Prejudice. At Canberra REP Theatre from September 4-20. Pride and Prejudice by Bloomshed: This "raucous" stage production is billed as "searing social satire dressed as a period drama" with some modern angst woven in, including questions about the housing crisis, the institution of marriage, the meaning of love and the power of rom-coms and reality TV. Bloomshed's retelling ("With the cost of living rising, and Mr Bennet played by a potted monstera, how will the Bennet family hold onto their precarious position on the property ladder?") plays in Melbourne and Geelong in August and Canberra Theatre Centre in October. Jane Austen and her legacy: Susannah Fullerton delivers a public lecture exploring what makes Austen the world's favourite female novelist 250 years after her birth. This free event at the National Library of Australia in Canberra from 6pm-7pm on August 20 will be livestreamed. Bookings are essential. 250 Glorious Years: Jane Austen's Legacy: The annual 2025 conference of the Jane Austen Society of Australia in Canberra on the weekend of October 31-November 2 will feature presentations by Wild for Austen author Devoney Looser of Arizona State University, Norwegian Professor of English Literature Dr Marie Nedregotten Sorbo and Dr William Christie, Professor Emeritus at Australian National University, among other speakers. The Saturday evening dinner will include a demonstration of Regency dancing (Regency dress is welcome, but not required!). For details visit: Netflix is doing a new Pride and Prejudice. A fresh Sense and Sensibility film is on the way too. We ask the experts why we still so ardently admire and love Jane Austen 250 years after her birth. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a streaming service or movie studio or book publisher in want of a good fortune must be in possession of a hot new take on Jane Austen. And so it is, in this 250th year since the birth of the great novelist - the English language's most revered writer after William Shakespeare - that streaming giant Netflix will be adding to its endless carousel of episodes of Bridgerton, Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game a shiny new "period-faithful" Pride and Prejudice miniseries billed as "both familiar and fresh". Also riding new generational waves of Austen adulation: movie makers Focus Features and Working Title Films, producers of the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice with its pulse-quickening, meme-worthy "hand flex" scene, who are shooting a new Sense and Sensibility feature film. Meanwhile, the BBC, which in 1995 gave us the definitive screen rendering of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth in a blush-makingly wet shirt as Mr Darcy, is pumping out multiple TV treatments, including the documentary Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and costume dramas Miss Austen and The Other Bennet Sister. Next month audiobook and podcast giant Audible takes Pride and Prejudice for its own spin around the ballroom in six languages, promising "cinematic sound design" and Marisa Abela, Harris Dickinson, Bill Nighy and Glenn Close leading the English-speaking cast. And, of course, the Austen-related books just keep coming in 2025: from a graphic novel depicting her life, The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A Graphic Biography by Professor Janine Barchas and illustrator Isabel Greenberg; to Jane Austen's Garden by Molly Williams, a botanical tour of Austen's era and novels; to the upcoming Jane Austen Insult Guide for Well-Bred Women, a collection of snarky witticisms compiled by Emily Reed; and Wild for Austen, American scholar Devoney Looser's subversive revision of Austen's image as a prim and proper spinster. More in a moment on the new screen Austens and their popular forerunners; the adaptations, extrapolations and reimaginings that help make way more visible - and more beloved - than any other novelist before or since a woman forced by the conventions of her day to publish her writing anonymously. First, some beneficent words of rapture and wise counsel from two distinguished patrons of all things Austen. Says Pamela Whalan, Austen scholar, lecturer and playwright: "I am a firm believer that nothing really replaces the reading of Austen's novels". The precious word "reading", of course, is given special emphasis in this declaration. Such Elizabeth Bennet-like prejudice from someone who has so proudly, painstakingly translated the language, characters, settings, emotions and insights of all six Austen novels into stage plays! "That might seem hypocritical considering I have adapted them for the stage," she explains. "But I see any adaptation as an introduction rather than a substitution for the delight of Austen's written word." Susannah Fullerton, literary historian, author of the memoir Jane & I: A Tale of Austen Addiction and president of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for "what seems like an age", concurs. "Everybody should read Jane Austen," she says. "Picking up what can look like a dusty old classic in the library or the bookshop can be off-putting for some people, which is such a shame because they're missing out on what I think is one of life's great literary experiences. There is just so much in these stories and characters to bring young people in particular back to reading." READ MORE: Sydney-based Ms Fullerton recently returned from the Global Jane Austen conference in the UK, where she presented on Austen "tourism". In October she will welcome guest speakers from the US and Norway to the society's annual conference in Canberra, a special celebration of "250 glorious years" of Austen. Before then, she will deliver a livestreamed public lecture on the writer's legacy at the National Library of Australia on August 20. "It really is very hard to keep up with everything that's happening this year in the Jane Austen world," she said. Which begs the question: why does Austen enjoy such unending appeal? "She makes us laugh, which in this sad world we're living in at the moment is very important," Ms Fullerton said. "She writes the world's greatest love stories and people love romance and a happy ending. And the quality of her prose - you never feel with Jane Austen that the editor should've gone through it with a red pen and, in this day and age of emojis and text messages and rather mangled English, it's a joy to read her beautifully written sentences. "For me, the major reason I go back to her books again and again is her phenomenal understanding of what makes people tick, of human nature. And that hasn't changed in the more than 200 years since she published her books. I think everybody knows characters like the ones Jane Austen created. You know, hypochondriac or stingy characters or people who talk too much like Miss Bates [from Emma]. "She really nails human nature and, while her characters might obviously be in bonnets and gowns and breeches, nothing much has changed about people and the things they do and what makes them behave the way they do." Ms Whalan, a Newcastle-based member of the Jane Austen Society of Australia for more than 30 years, has had her Austen plays published and performed in Australia and the US. "Jane Austen had a wonderful power of observation," she said. "She understood how people thought, behaved, needed, wanted. She was a realist and an optimist but was not a romantic. Her characters are based on normal people - people you could recognise as you go about your normal daily routine. "Times and society change but human nature does not. A woman who was worried about her future security and the security of her family is recognisable and creates sympathy even if the circumstances and solutions vary from time and place." Ms Whalan's favourite novel is Persuasion ("it has a bittersweet reality"), Emma is "absolute perfection when considering plot construction" and Sense and Sensibility shows Austen was grounded more "in the world of reality than romance". The opening line of Pride and Prejudice may be ingrained on the memories of the many millions who have read it over the centuries (''It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife"), but she does not rank the "light and frothy" novel as one of Austen's best. "Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful beginning but it is only the start of the Austen adventure," she said. "Remember, she wrote five other full-length novels as well as novella and the absolutely wonderful wicked and witty juvenilia." And yet, of all of the many Austen screen adaptations, the 1995 BBC TV version of the book is perhaps "the best reflection of her writing". The popularity of that series helped double the membership of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, which is why, like her literary heroine, Ms Whalan is a realist about the role films and TV play in bringing new audiences to Austen. "A visual presentation can act as an introduction to the enjoyment and understanding of an Austen novel," she said. "Film and television adaptations can provide a modern audience with information the novel does not, and never meant to, provide. Such adaptations are an entry point into a world [of different] clothing, manners, morals, daily life and language. [They] have the freedom to roam about the countryside and show us the grandeur of large social gatherings. But sometimes, in bringing us such visual splendour, they stray away from Miss Austen's focus on human beings." Ms Fullerton, too, admits to struggling with screen translations of the novelist's work. "It's always nice to see a well-made adaptation - it's a real pleasure," she says. An admirer of the 1995 Pride and Prejudice ("a very fine adaptation. It stuck very closely to the book and it had excellent acting"), she regards Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility film of the same year as her favourite screen Austen. "I think Emma Thompson did that wonderfully and it's the one I really love, so hopefully they will get it right with future versions," she said. Some subsequent screen Austens she describes as "totally disastrous". "You think 'Why did people bother?' I don't mind small changes from the book. Obviously that's going to happen when you're transferring a book to the screen and sometimes happens for good reasons. But when you make endless changes you think 'Why bother making a Jane Austen when you are cutting the novel to shreds?' So that really does upset me." Ms Fullerton cherishes Emma as "the total masterpiece" ("It's the world's greatest novel. I don't think one word of it could be changed to improve it in any way whatsoever.") but recommends the "totally gorgeous" Pride and Prejudice for newcomers: "If somebody's never read Jane Austen, that's a very, very good place to start". She hopes Netflix isn't tempted to tweak it too much to reach the TikTok generation: "I think the novel already does that - it talks to young people who are looking for good partners in their lives, who have to think about their careers and their financial security. "A complete modernisation, something like Clueless which was clever indeed in its treatment of Emma, can make sense but otherwise stick to the book, follow the norms of the era [and] all the things that concern Austen are still concerns young people in particular have in their everyday lives today". Jane Austen was born in Steventon, Hampshire, on December 16, 1775. She was the seventh of eight children and cherished her father Reverend George Austen's extensive library. When her father died in 1805, Jane, her mother and her only sister Cassandra were left financially dependent on their male relatives. She wrote most of her novels before she had turned 22, but the first was not published until she was 35. Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814), and Emma (1816) were modest successes in her lifetime but published without her name on them. The author was identified only as "A Lady". Two other novels - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion - were published posthumously, following her death, aged 41, in Winchester on July 18, 1817. She also left behind the epistolary novella Lady Susan, two unfinished novels, Sanditon and The Watsons, her juvenile writing and hundreds of letters. She is buried in Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where she lived for the last eight years of her life is now a museum, Jane Austen's House. Miss Austen: Now showing on the ABC and ABC iView, this four-part BBC drama stars Keeley Hawes as Cassandra Austen, who was responsible for what some consider to be literature's greatest act of vandalism - destroying almost all of sister Jane's correspondence. Of an estimated 3000 letters, only about 160 survive - the rest burned to protect the writer's reputation and privacy. Gill Hornby's novel gets the full-blown Jane Austen period drama treatment, with Patsy Ferran as the young author and Synnove Karlsen as the younger Cassie. Hornby has said: "The fact that - thanks to Cassandra's bonfire - we know so little about the author has proved wildly successful. That element of mysterious, quiet dignity is crucial to the success of the Jane Austen brand". Jane Austen Wrecked My Life: Screening in selected cinemas, this Bridget Jones' Diary-esque French rom-com follows a desperately single bookshop keeper to a writers' retreat as she chases her Austen-influenced dream of becoming a romance novelist - and finding her own happily-ever-after. Pride and Prejudice (Audible series): This audio adaptation features the voices of Babygirl's Harris Dickinson as Darcy, Marisa Abela (who was singer Amy Winehouse in 2024 biopic Back to Black) as Elizabeth, Bill Nighy and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Mr and Mrs Bennet and Glenn Close as Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Dropping worldwide on September 9 and promising "cinematic sound design", the producers say their retelling will remain "faithful to the original text" while adding a "unique interior perspective" from Lizzie. Sense and Sensibility (feature film): Focus Features and Working Title Films, which collaborated on 2005's Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Anya Taylor-Joy version of Emma, are back in the Austen business with Daisy Edgar-Jones (star of acclaimed TV romance Normal People and 2024 film Twisters) in the lead role of Elinor Dashwood. Outlander's Esme Creed-Miles plays her sister Marianne, Outlander's Caitrona Balfe is Mrs Dashwood and George MacKay (from the Sam Mendes war saga 1917) is Elinor's love interest, Edward Ferrars. You'll recall in the 1995 version that Emma Thompson played Elinor, Kate Winslet was Marianne and Hugh Grant was Edward. The new script is by Australian author Diana Reid. Pride and Prejudice (Netflix series): Emma Corrin, who played Diana in The Crown and Connie in Netflix's 2022 film of Lady Chatterley's Lover, is Elizabeth Bennet (and also an executive producer) for this six-part series. Billed as a "faithful, classic adaptation", it also stars Jack Lowden as Darcy and The Favourite's Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. "Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be a part of it," screenwriter Dolly Alderton has said. "I am so excited to reintroduce these hilarious and complicated characters to those who count Pride and Prejudice as their favourite book, and those who are yet to meet their Lizzie and Mr Darcy." Pride and Prejudice (1995): Incredibly, it's 30 years since the BBC's impeccably faithful, six-hour adaptation starring Firth and Ehle thrust Austen back into popular culture. Screenwriter Andrew Davies added a scene with Darcy emerging from a pond in a wet shirt, which made Firth a screen heartthrob. Alison Steadman gives the standout performance as the insufferably grasping Mrs Bennet. Where to watch: Stream it now on Stan, BritBox or Apple TV. Also in the 1990s: Emma Thompson's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility (1995) directed by Ang Lee; duelling 1996 versions of Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale; Notting Hill director Roger Michell's 1995 Persuasion; Aussie actress Frances O'Connor in Mansfield Park (1999); and Clueless (1995), the spirited Beverly Hills teen twist on Emma starring Alicia Silverstone. Pride & Prejudice (2005): Grittier, sweatier and muddier than the 1995 series, director Joe Wright's film is returning to selected Australian cinemas for its 20th anniversary. It stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, with Judi Dench, Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn. Wright's blink-and-you'll-miss-it cutaway shot to Mr Darcy's "hand flex" after holding feisty Lizze's hand continues to provide ardent fans with TikTok's favourite visual shorthand for intense romantic yearning and frisson. Where to watch: In selected cinemas or stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel or Apple TV. Also in the 2000s: Renee Zellwegger torn between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant in 2001's Pride and Prejudice-inspired Bridget Jones's Diary; Bollywood musical comedy Bride and Prejudice (2005), an exuberant song-and-dance romance starring former Miss World Aishwarya Rai; Felicity Jones and Carey Mulligan in a Northanger Abbey (2007) scripted by Andrew Davies; the four-part Emma (2009) starring Romola Garai as Emma Woodhouse, Michael Gambon as her father and Jonny Lee Miller as Mr Knightley; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016) starring Lily James; Kate Beckinsale in Love and Friendship (2016), based on early Austen work Lady Susan; the series Sanditon, with screenwriter Davies completing Austen's unfinished manuscript (2020-23); the unnecessary but extravagantly styled 2020 version of Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy; and Dakota Johnson's not-very-persuasive Persuasion (2022). Vinyl revival: Decca Records has released the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie soundtrack on vinyl for the first time to mark the film's 20th anniversary. The Oscar-nominated score was composed by Dario Marianelli and performed by acclaimed pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the English Chamber Orchestra. Lizzy, Darcy & Jane: This play by Joanna Norland draws on key events in Austen's life, including her romance with Tom Lefroy in 1796 and Harris Bigg-Wither's proposal in 1801, to playfully imagine what influenced the 20-year-old writer as she began a story in 1796 titled First Impressions, which would later become Pride and Prejudice. At Canberra REP Theatre from September 4-20. Pride and Prejudice by Bloomshed: This "raucous" stage production is billed as "searing social satire dressed as a period drama" with some modern angst woven in, including questions about the housing crisis, the institution of marriage, the meaning of love and the power of rom-coms and reality TV. Bloomshed's retelling ("With the cost of living rising, and Mr Bennet played by a potted monstera, how will the Bennet family hold onto their precarious position on the property ladder?") plays in Melbourne and Geelong in August and Canberra Theatre Centre in October. Jane Austen and her legacy: Susannah Fullerton delivers a public lecture exploring what makes Austen the world's favourite female novelist 250 years after her birth. This free event at the National Library of Australia in Canberra from 6pm-7pm on August 20 will be livestreamed. Bookings are essential. 250 Glorious Years: Jane Austen's Legacy: The annual 2025 conference of the Jane Austen Society of Australia in Canberra on the weekend of October 31-November 2 will feature presentations by Wild for Austen author Devoney Looser of Arizona State University, Norwegian Professor of English Literature Dr Marie Nedregotten Sorbo and Dr William Christie, Professor Emeritus at Australian National University, among other speakers. The Saturday evening dinner will include a demonstration of Regency dancing (Regency dress is welcome, but not required!). For details visit:
Sky News AU
7 hours ago
- Sky News AU
New $1,000 Penfolds Grange 2021 lauded by top global wine critic as 'close to perfect'
Penfolds Grange is still knocking them dead, with critics in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia awarding the latest release 100 points. International scribe Ken Gargett set the tone when he said the Penfolds Grange 2021 ($1,000) 'simply dances with joy'. 'This is as close to a perfect Grange as I can imagine,' he said. Gargett's reviews are published in Wine Pilot, World of Fine Wine and Quill and Pad. He added: 'One simply gets lost in the nose, just endlessly sniffing the most glorious cassis notes, along with black fruits, blueberries, coffee beans, aniseed, mulberries, delicatessen meats, tobacco leaves, plums and graphite. 'The wine is seamless, intense and immaculate with knife-edge balance.' Other scribes who gave it top scores include Australians Tony Love, Nick Stock and Lisa Perrotti-Brown in California, Anders Enquiest in Sweden, Wilfred Wong in San Francisco and André Kunz in Switzerland. This shows the wine's global reach. It's a genuine collectable and a triumph for chief winemaker Peter Gago and his team. The accolades can only enhance Australia's reputation abroad as a producer of high-quality wine - with a halo effect for our food, especially beef. Master of Wine Andrew Caillard, the author of The Australian Ark, The Story of Australian Wine from 1788 to the Modern Era, gave the Grange 98 points. 'In the end it is a lovely wine that exemplifies the character, beauty and potential longevity of Grange,' he told me. Penfolds Grange has appeared every year since 1951 and is routinely released as a four-year-old. The vintage of Penfolds Grange released today is therefore the 2021. In South Australia it carries the official Heritage Icon status. The Grange sits at the top of an exceptional 24 wines from Australia, the US, France and China that will be publicly available from August 7. And there was an exciting newcomer on the Penfolds hit parade this year. It was made in Bordeaux as part of Penfolds French winemaking trials. Penfolds 2022 FWT 543 Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah ($100) is a union of cabernet sauvignon and shiraz is deeply woven into the Penfolds story, Mr Gago said. The blend defines some of the winemakers' most notable wines, including Bin 389, Bin 600, and the limited release Bin 180 made to celebrate Penfolds 180 years, and Superblend 802 A and Superblend 802 B. 'It works. Using a 65-year-old Bin 389 style template, the immediate acceptance of the inaugural 2018 Bin 600 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz from California – championed by winemakers, Steph Dutton and Andrew Balwin – emboldened our French team,' Mr Gago said. 'Not to be outdone, winemaker Shauna Bastow has propelled a French trialling first, the 2022 FWT 543 Cabernet Sauvignon Syrah, into this collection. 'Over time, and with brave sourcing and winemaking ambition, we await its ascent to Bin status.' It is a sumptuous blend containing 52 percent cabernet sauvignon and 48 percent syrah (shiraz). I scored it 97 points. The Grange overshadows some of the other outstanding wines in this collection, especially the Penfolds 2023 Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon ($800). I scored it 97 points. It is a multi-regional blend with fruit sourced from McLaren Vale, Padthaway and the Barossa Valley, and was matured in new American oak hogsheads for 18 months. This is an immaculate wine with gorgeous florals, blackcurrants, cherry, tobacco and pepper aromas ahead of a multi-layered palate with more cherry and blackcurrant plus mulberry, spiced plum and a hint of dark chocolate. I gave 96 points to Penfolds Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz 2023 ($100) described by Penfolds winemaker Shavaughn Wells as 'a bold, full bodied shiraz expression with structured tannins and a bright acidity'. It has a panoply of aromas and flavours from charred meats and olive tapenade to sweet plums and chocolate all framed with a mix of new and old French and American oak. Some others include Penfolds Bin 28 Shiraz 2023 ($50) which scored 94 points and has a ripe and generous warm climate of Australian shiraz. Age Worthy. There's the Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2023 ($120, 95 points). It's a multi-regional blend exemplifying Penfolds' 'house style' with opulent fruit matured in American oak. Penfolds St Henri Shiraz 2022 ($135.) Points 97. A classic. Perfect colour. Plush and rich. Minimal oak. The wine the winemakers drink. Max Schubert made the first experimental Grange in 1951. John Davoren followed suit with St Henri in 1953. Winemaker Steph Dutton says this vintage will gain soft, earthy, mocha-like characters as it ages. Penfolds Magill Estate Shiraz 2023 ($180) Points 96. A true monopole. Fruit from the original estate established in 1844 just 8km from the Adelaide GPO. Matured in the same wax-lined open fermenters Max Schubert once used to craft Grange. Black fruits, savoury tannins. A juicy, savoury complexity. Penfolds RWT Bin 798 Barossa Valley Shiraz 2023 ($220). Points 96. A contemporary expression of Barossa Shiraz in contrast to the more muscular Grange. Aromas of blueberries and mulberries billow from the glass. A subtle floral note of violets emerges intermingled with cedar and sandalwood. Tasting notes speak of plummy black fruits, pepper spices, cherry-infused chocolate and a hint of cola. From the third vintage of the China wine trials comes Penfolds CWT521 Cabernet Sauvignon Marselan 2023 ($150) Points 94. The blend 89 per cent cabernet sauvignon from the high-altitude vineyards of Shangri-La and 11 per cent marselan from Ningxia. The marselan grape is a crossing of cabernet sauvignon and grenache. In autumn the vines are buried to protect them from the harsh winters. Penfolds Yattarna Bin 144 Chardonnay 2023 ($220). I gave it 98 points; the same score I gave the Grange in this column last week. A monumental wine with superb fruit complexity. Our answer to white Burgundy. Yattarna is the winery's flagship white made by senior winemaker Kym Schroeter with fruit from three states. From White Hill and the Coal River valley in Tasmania, Tumbarumba in the NSW high country and the Adelaide Hills in South Australia.
Sydney Morning Herald
10 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
This sun-splashed Mexican rooftop is perfect for long, margarita-charged lunches
Perched on the new Eve Hotel at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct, Lottie is one of the swishest spots to sweet up guacamole, grilled Sinaloa-style chicken and pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole. Previous SlideNext Slide I can't say if Lottie serves the best Mexican food in Australia, but it is, by some margin, the swishest spot to load up on guacamole I've encountered outside the Americas. Terrazzo floors. Textured, blush-pink travertine walls. Pops of red ochre and orange through the tabletops, banquette and coasters. Succulents frame the skyline and there's a retractable ceiling that can't welcome summer soon enough. It's on the rooftop of the equally swish Eve Hotel, which opened in February at Redfern's Wunderlich Lane precinct (that $500 million, mixed-use, brick development on the Surry Hills border). If you sit on the side of Lottie that has a view of Sydney Football Stadium, you'll also have a sight-line to the giant, Bond-villain doorway leading to Eve's rooftop pool. Only hotel guests can access the pool and, on a sunny winter afternoon, a few of them do. One patron forces a smile in our table's direction that reminds me of an old Jerry Seinfeld stand-up bit, the one about the stewardess giving a look to economy passengers while closing the first-class curtain. A look that says, 'Maybe if you had worked a little harder ...' Rooms cost upwards of $500 if you want the privilege of drinking one of Lottie's (very good) cocktails with your toes in the water. The rest of us will be at the bar. I'm not sure how I feel about such a luxury development operating in a suburb where longtime residents have been pushed out due to redevelopment and soaring rents. An essay for the Herald 's opinion pages some other time. For the purposes of this column, however, I'll say that I like many of Lottie's dishes an awful lot and Mexican-born chef Joe Valero is a talent. One of the best, three-bite snacks I've had all year is Valero's version of a sope (it's like a chubby, fried tortilla) made with featherlight potato rather than masa flour. He tops it with kangaroo tail cooked for six hours in a stock of its own bones and a combination of dried-chilli varieties to balance smoke, tang, sweetness and heat. Liquid & Larder is the hospitality business running Lottie, plus Bar Julius (classic drinks, all-day dining, beautiful fit-out, would recommend) on the Eve Hotel's ground floor. While the group's CBD steak joints, Bistecca and The Gidley, are invariably packed with blokes, the Lottie clientele was 90 per cent women the other week. Is there a law against men eating together in nice Mexican restaurants? What's going on, my dudes? There's steak here, too! Butter-soft rib-eye, specifically, topped with a herbal, charred salsa of tomatillo, jalapenos and shiso. It's one of six large plates designed to be eaten with warm, textured corn tortillas on the side ($1.50 each – load up). Grilled Sinaloa-style chicken is marinated in a spice paste fruity with ancho chillis and dressed in a coriander-heavy aji verde with burnt lime. Vibrant, citrusy stuff. Goat from a farm just outside Orange is marinated, cooked whole and shredded for the barbacoa, a submissive tangle of meat with caramelised crust and a soft punch from apple cider vinegar. Pair it one of the dozens of tequilas and mezcals on offer, or something red and earthy from the short-but-powerful wine list. There's usually someone on hand you can chat with about booze, and for the lighter dishes our waiter recommends a Chilean wine made from the moscatel de Alejandria grape he describes as 'like eucalyptus beurre blanc'. Sold. You'll also want a half-serve of the pork jowl with a cola-flavoured mole sauce deep enough to get lost in. It's one of the few dishes that remain from Lottie's opening menu (Valero was only appointed head chef in May), along with the ceviche-like aguachile with snappy, raw prawns and pickled carrots. I was half-tempted to shoot its laser-sharp, leftover liquor, dotted with prawn oil, like a 19th-century health tonic. Word to the wise: avoid the basement-level car park, at least on a Sunday afternoon. It was an epic poem to find a spot two weekends ago, a drawn-out battle with locals shopping at Wunderlich Lane's Harris Farm. Eve Hotel guests have their own parking spots, but again, that will be upwards of $500 for the privilege.
