Can AI really write music you might want to listen to?
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to echidna@theechidna.com.au . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
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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:
The Age
10 hours ago
- The Age
Good grief: Dua Lipa turns spotlight on Helen Garner's book
Here's something you don't hear every day. English-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has thrown her star power behind one of Australia's most loved writers, Helen Garner. Talk about an unlikely duo. Lipa is spotlighting Garner's This House of Grief in her popular book club this month. The 2014 non-fiction book follows the trial of Victorian man Robert Farquharson, who is serving 33 years for murdering his three sons on Father's Day in 2005. When contacted by CBD, Garner told us she was a bit embarrassed by all the international attention – having fielded multiple media requests all day. Luckily, Lipa had a few more words to say on social media. 'Her work is new to me and it's a thrilling discovery. She's one of the most fascinating writers I have come across in recent years,' the singer said about Garner. 'What she reveals along the way is not simply a courtroom drama but a sharp and forensic analysis of the human condition.' Garner, who has also tackled true crime with her 2004 book, Joe Cinque's Consolation, was spotted in the courtroom for the trial of triple mushroom murderer Erin Patterson. Garner is partnering with Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein to write The Mushroom Tapes. It turns out Lipa is somewhat of an aficionado when it comes to our local arts scene. Back in 2023, the Sydney Theatre Company's production about ex-PM Julia Gillard, Julia, was on the pop star's must-watch theatre list.
Perth Now
11 hours ago
- Perth Now
Roger Corman's cult film series Deathstalker is getting a big-screen reboot
Roger Corman's cult film series Deathstalker is getting a big-screen reboot. Director Steven Kostanski, 39, has described his upcoming fantasy take on the fan-favourite franchise as 'not your typical reboot', after Shout! Studios secured exclusive English-language distribution rights to it in a multi-territory deal just days before the 78th Locarno Film Festival. The agreement, struck between Shout! – a Radial Entertainment company – and Canadian outfit Raven Banner Entertainment, will bring the new reimagining of Roger's cult sword and sorcery franchise to theatres later this year. Directed and written by Steven, the Deathstalker reboot stars Daniel Bernhardt, 59, as the battle-scarred warrior of the title, and Patton Oswalt, 55, as the voice of a benevolent wizard named Doodad. The acquisition covers theatrical, digital, video-on-demand, broadcast and physical media rights, with Raven Banner Releasing set to distribute the film simultaneously in Canada. Made in Argentina, the 2025 film revisits the fantasy kingdom of Abraxeon, which is under threat from the Dreadites – a faction intent on resurrecting the ancient sorcerer Nekromemnon. The plot follows Deathstalker after he picks up a cursed amulet from the body of a fallen prince. Joined by Doodad, he embarks on a quest to break the curse while evading monstrous assassins. The original Deathstalker, produced by Roger in 1983 and buoyed by the popularity of Conan the Barbarian, was a surprise box-office hit. Its 1987 sequel, Deathstalker II, has since also become a cult favourite, often labelled the greatest B-movie ever made. But Steven – whose past credits include PG: Psycho Goreman and The Void – has taken a markedly different approach. Jordan Fields, 47, SVP of Acquisitions and Originals at Radial Entertainment, said: 'Steve is one of the most fiercely creative filmmakers working today and his love for this IP and genre oozes from every frame. 'Deathstalker is catnip for fans of the Dungeons Dragons staples – thrilling battles, sly humour, offbeat creatures and thoughtful lore. 'Daniel Bernhardt is pitch perfect in a role he was born to play. Roger Corman would have marvelled at what Steve, Daniel and Hangar 18 have accomplished here, and we predict the film will earn a devoted following very quickly.' Michael Paszt, 52, of Raven Banner added: 'We grew up on a steady diet of Roger Corman movies, especially Deathstalker II. These films were the inspiration for Raven Banner. 'To be a part of reimagining one of his most outrageously entertaining sword sorcery classics with Steven Kostanski at the helm, Daniel Bernhardt, Pasha at Hangar 18 along with Slash Rodrigo, our partners at BerserkerGang, is a total dream come true for us. Fans are in store for a wild ride of monsters, magic, and mayhem.'
