Brisbane poaches arts visionary to shape festival's future
Bott has worked for two decades at major cultural institutions including Adelaide Festival Centre and Arts Centre Melbourne, and comes to the Brisbane Festival from her current role as head of contemporary performance at the Sydney Opera House.
There she programmed major productions including Amadeus starring Michael Sheen, hip-hop dance phenomenon Message in a Bottle, set to the music of Sting, and the Netflix-filmed world premiere of Hannah Gadsby's Body of Work.
The sixth artistic director in the festival's history, Bott said she was drawn to the 'civic ritual' of Brisbane Festival.
'It has a pulse that's distinctly local, and a platform that resonates far beyond.
Loading
'For me, the most powerful festivals grow from the identity of their city, not simply land upon it.'
Brisbane Festival chair Anna Reynolds said Bott was unafraid to ask big questions.
'She understands the moment Brisbane is in – a city on the cusp of positioning itself on the global stage – and brings both the boldness and the rigour to shape a festival that speaks to this.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
an hour ago
- Perth Now
Inside celebrity chef Pete Evans' rapid downfall
Pete Evans has opened up about the downfall of his celebrity chef status that played out in the media following his decision to turn to the paleo diet. The 52-year-old chef and former My Kitchen Rules judge told American doctor Will Cole about how he went from being 'celebrated and adored' to being hated by Australia. Evans said the hate started after he discovered and began advocating the paleo diet — also known as the caveman diet, based on the idea of eating foods that were available to hunter-gatherers during the Paleolithic era. 'Up until that time, I was celebrated, adored by the Australian media and public until I started talking about paleo, ancestral diets', he told Dr Cole on his podcast The Art of Being Well. 'I was attacked straight away. It was bizarre, I was like, why is this so challenging, triggering, why is this happening, because I started sharing anecdotal stories of people improving their health who had adopted this way of life. The Melbourne-born chef said he was labelled by the media and health experts as 'crazy and dangerous'. 'Dietitians would say this is completely unfounded, dangerous, he's not a doctor, he's just a chef, even though the information I was sharing was from doctors,' he said. If you'd like to view this content, please adjust your . To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookie Guide. The controversial wellness advocate said Australians had been 'brainwashed' by dietitians promoting dietary guidelines on the 'morning news'. As a result, he has to settle for getting his message and way of life out to the public through podcasting. Evans was aware his beliefs would be 'rejected', but didn't want to force it on people. Evans also set the record straight on the fact he is 'not opposed to modern technology in medicine at all'. The prominent sceptic of COVID-19 vaccines and masks was dropped from his hosting role on the popular Seven reality cooking show in May 2020 over his outspoken views. Evans and his wife Nicola have embraced an ancestral diet. Credit: Instagram In November that year, he was engulfed in further controversy after posting a cartoon on Instagram featuring a nazi 'black sun' symbol. He lost 15 business partnerships as a result of the post. Evans continues to spark debate over his non-traditional lifestyle of a mainly carnivorous diet, experience with plant medicines and using psychedelics as a way of therapy. Before COVID-19, a pandemic he called a hoax and questioned the effects of masks and social distancing, Evans filmed his documentary, The Magic Pill, which sees doctors, farmers and chefs weigh in on the ketogenic diet and its potential to eradicate illness. The Australian Medical Association at the time campaigned for it to be removed from Netflix for spreading 'dangerous' messaging about health. Evans is currently on holiday in the US and will next visit Salt Lake City.
The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
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 Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Who wore it best? Darcy's wet shirt in 1995 or Darcy's hand flex in 2005?
Like the nerves of his wife are to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Bennet, we have high respect for these screen versions of Jane Austen. We talk, of course, of the BBC's 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and the 2005 Keira Knightley movie version of the great novelist's most popular book. To misquote Mr Bennet, these adaptations are our old friends and we have heard them mentioned with consideration these past 30 years at least. Yes, this year marks three decades since Firth's Mr Darcy steamed up TV screens in his clinging wet shirt, thrusting Austen's novels back into popular culture. And it's 20 years since director Joe Wright's big-screen Pride & Prejudice - with its noteworthy ampersand in the title - gave us Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy and that meme-worthy "hand flex" moment of emotional intensity. Both screen treatments continue to give ardent Austen fans the vapours and both, fittingly, are marking milestones in the 250th year since the great novelist herself was born. Which is all the excuse you need to revisit them - which I heartily recommend after my own recent weekend binge. With the Pride & Prejudice movie getting a cinema re-release to mark its 20th anniversary, a new Netflix screen version currently in the works and an Audible audiobook production featuring the likes of Bill Nighy and Glenn Close dropping worldwide on September 9, let's look back at which screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice wore it best: Darcy's wet shirt of 1995 or Darcy's hand flex of 2005? The Firth series premiered on UK TV screens on September 25, 1995. The Brits had already swooned for dashing Mr Darcy and lively Lizzie Bennett (played by Jenifer Ehle) by the time Australians got to see the ravishing rendition an absurd six months later. Yes, kids, back in 1995, pay-TV had only just started in Australia and most of us were stuck with only five channels to watch. Pride and Prejudice premiered on ABC TV on Sunday, March 3, 1996, in the hotly contested 7.30pm timeslot against 60 Minutes (following Burke's Backyard!) on Nine, Tim Allen sitcom Home Improvement on Seven and US drama Party of Five on Ten. "Surprisingly erotic" is how we described the lavish costume drama back then, noting the bust-enhancing necklines of the ladies' frocks and Firth's splendid smouldering as Darcy, the aloof but handsomely wealthy romantic hero. Here's how we previewed Pride and Prejudice 30 years ago: Popping the question has rarely been as eloquent as it is in the BBC's exquisite new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When novelist Jane Austen's well-bred, handsomely rich and most agreeably good-looking romantic hero, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, asks for the hand of outspoken country girl Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the restrained passion of the inscrutable dasher burns brightly on the screen. READ MORE: Says Darcy after exchanging one too many smouldering glances with Miss Bennet: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you ... I beg you most fervently to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife". Darcy puts his elegant proposition at the end of the third episode of the ravishing six-part drama as he reaches the half-way point on his rocky road to wedded bliss with the gorgeous Lizzie. Set to premiere on the ABC on Sunday, March 3, at 7.30pm and released last month on ABC Video*, Pride and Prejudice went to air in Britain late last year and had critics raving and set the hearts of male and female viewers racing. While some academies and purists from the Jane Austen Society labelled the show a "romantic counterfeit" of the book, which was first published in 1813, an average audience of 10 million Britons watched the TV version of the elaborate love story unfold over six weeks. More than 100,000 fans couldn't even wait for the episodes to roll around and raced out to buy the video*. Austen's novel has been given some narrative surgery (including a new-look happy ending) in the move to TV but the compelling refinement of the story and characters, the exchanges of verbal wit and the moral remain gloriously intact. Colin Firth (seen recently on the ABC in the British movie A Month in the Country) stars as Mr Darcy, Austen's tall, dark, handsome but mysteriously aloof leading man. Firth is fabulous as the character that set the standard for other famous romantic heroes like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. In Darcy's tight white trousers and brooding demeanour, Firth attained virtual pin-up status during Pride and Prejudice's run on the BBC and is bound to turn female heads Down Under. Jennifer Ehle (who played Calypso in The Camomile Lawn) is Firth's perfect match as Lizzie Bennet, Austen's bright and witty heroine, the second of the five Bennet sisters, whose embarrassingly vulgar mother (played by Alison Steadman) has made it her mission in life to "secure" rich husbands for her variously accomplished daughters. Firth reportedly squired the delectable Ehle during the shooting of the $12 million series and production insiders fed the British press juicy stories of "bruised lips and sexual tension" during the couple's more intimate scenes together. There is certainly a seductive chemistry evident between the pair as the pent-up affections of their characters evolve into sensuality. Pride and Prejudice sexy? You bet. Thriller writer P.D. James once described Austen's work as "Mills and Boon written by a genius". The TV critic for The Guardian observed of Darcy's suppressed lust as portrayed by Firth: "He (Darcy) stares at Elizabeth like a ravenous mastiff that has been put on its honour not to touch that sausage". Andrew Davies, the ace screenwriter who adapted Middlemarch, House of Cards and To Play the King before turning his talent to Austen's classic, described the sexual attraction between Darcy and Lizzie as "the engine that drives the plot". Indeed, producer Sue Birtwistle originally sold the idea to Davies as a story about money and sex. "It's what those wonderful old films used to be about, all smouldering glances across the room," she said. "It's sexy the first time they touch hands when they dance. Those kinds of moments are exciting and much sexier than thrashing around in bed." British underwear retailers certainly recognised the power of the series' restrained sex appeal. The bosom-enhancing cut of the Bennet sisters' frocks inspired one company to offer customers the chance to recreate "Jane Austen's classic look" with a bustier designed to give the wearer "an authentic Pride and Prejudice cleavage". Where to watch it now: Pride and Prejudice (1995) is available now to stream in Australia on Stan, BritBox and Apple TV. It is a truth universally acknowledged that someone in possession of the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice on DVD* will never want for a melting moment. Jane Austen's stately story of strong-willed young Lizzie Bennet and her elegant dance of love with the aristocratic Mr Darcy was beautifully told over six compelling hours by the BBC. It's been 10 years since we first saw Firth's uptight Darcy swap bittersweet misunderstandings with Jennifer Ehle's forthright Miss Bennet. That intensely romantic series - TV's fifth adaptation of the Austen novel - remains the costume drama against which all other literary adaptations and period pieces are measured. This lively new Pride & Prejudice is the first feature film of the book since 1940, when Laurence Olivier matched wits with Greer Garson. It's a handsome, charming and warmly amusing comedy of manners particularly notable for its big-name supporting players and director Joe Wright's willingness to forgo pretty bonnets and sitting rooms for muddy hems and outdoor settings. But the Firth version is a hard act to follow. Keira Knightley (from Bend it Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur) pouts ever-so delicately as Lizzie, second and most sensible of the five Bennet sisters, whose insufferable, embarrassing mother (Brenda Blethyn) has made it her life's mission to marry them off. Spirited Lizzie resolves to follow her heart, never suspecting that it will lead her to Mr Darcy, a very rich and very handsome man who makes a very poor first impression. Knightley looks engagingly unglamorous as our heroine and Matthew MacFadyen (from TV spy show Spooks) is her telegenic match. But his aloof aristocrat Darcy comes on way too strong as an arrogant sourpuss and proves no competition (in wet shirt or dry) for Firth, though to be fair Firth had much more time on the telly to work his charms. More important, the chemistry between the leads lacks the exquisite tingle required to make us swoon when Wright rings down one of his stunning backdrops (their confrontation in a downpour, their reconciliation on a misty meadow in the golden glow of dawn). Making up for that somewhat are lovely performances by Blethyn as the cringefully improper Mrs Bennet, Donald Sutherland as her long-suffering but quietly rational husband, and Judi Dench as Mr Darcy's imperious aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Sutherland's Mr Bennet is probably the film's most engaging character, especially in the pivotal sequence in which he is touched by his favourite daughter's sense and sensibility. It's just a shame we're not as moved as he is. Where to watch it now: Pride & Prejudice (2005) is screening in selected cinemas and available now to stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel and Apple TV. Like the nerves of his wife are to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Bennet, we have high respect for these screen versions of Jane Austen. We talk, of course, of the BBC's 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and the 2005 Keira Knightley movie version of the great novelist's most popular book. To misquote Mr Bennet, these adaptations are our old friends and we have heard them mentioned with consideration these past 30 years at least. Yes, this year marks three decades since Firth's Mr Darcy steamed up TV screens in his clinging wet shirt, thrusting Austen's novels back into popular culture. And it's 20 years since director Joe Wright's big-screen Pride & Prejudice - with its noteworthy ampersand in the title - gave us Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy and that meme-worthy "hand flex" moment of emotional intensity. Both screen treatments continue to give ardent Austen fans the vapours and both, fittingly, are marking milestones in the 250th year since the great novelist herself was born. Which is all the excuse you need to revisit them - which I heartily recommend after my own recent weekend binge. With the Pride & Prejudice movie getting a cinema re-release to mark its 20th anniversary, a new Netflix screen version currently in the works and an Audible audiobook production featuring the likes of Bill Nighy and Glenn Close dropping worldwide on September 9, let's look back at which screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice wore it best: Darcy's wet shirt of 1995 or Darcy's hand flex of 2005? The Firth series premiered on UK TV screens on September 25, 1995. The Brits had already swooned for dashing Mr Darcy and lively Lizzie Bennett (played by Jenifer Ehle) by the time Australians got to see the ravishing rendition an absurd six months later. Yes, kids, back in 1995, pay-TV had only just started in Australia and most of us were stuck with only five channels to watch. Pride and Prejudice premiered on ABC TV on Sunday, March 3, 1996, in the hotly contested 7.30pm timeslot against 60 Minutes (following Burke's Backyard!) on Nine, Tim Allen sitcom Home Improvement on Seven and US drama Party of Five on Ten. "Surprisingly erotic" is how we described the lavish costume drama back then, noting the bust-enhancing necklines of the ladies' frocks and Firth's splendid smouldering as Darcy, the aloof but handsomely wealthy romantic hero. Here's how we previewed Pride and Prejudice 30 years ago: Popping the question has rarely been as eloquent as it is in the BBC's exquisite new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When novelist Jane Austen's well-bred, handsomely rich and most agreeably good-looking romantic hero, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, asks for the hand of outspoken country girl Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the restrained passion of the inscrutable dasher burns brightly on the screen. READ MORE: Says Darcy after exchanging one too many smouldering glances with Miss Bennet: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you ... I beg you most fervently to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife". Darcy puts his elegant proposition at the end of the third episode of the ravishing six-part drama as he reaches the half-way point on his rocky road to wedded bliss with the gorgeous Lizzie. Set to premiere on the ABC on Sunday, March 3, at 7.30pm and released last month on ABC Video*, Pride and Prejudice went to air in Britain late last year and had critics raving and set the hearts of male and female viewers racing. While some academies and purists from the Jane Austen Society labelled the show a "romantic counterfeit" of the book, which was first published in 1813, an average audience of 10 million Britons watched the TV version of the elaborate love story unfold over six weeks. More than 100,000 fans couldn't even wait for the episodes to roll around and raced out to buy the video*. Austen's novel has been given some narrative surgery (including a new-look happy ending) in the move to TV but the compelling refinement of the story and characters, the exchanges of verbal wit and the moral remain gloriously intact. Colin Firth (seen recently on the ABC in the British movie A Month in the Country) stars as Mr Darcy, Austen's tall, dark, handsome but mysteriously aloof leading man. Firth is fabulous as the character that set the standard for other famous romantic heroes like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. In Darcy's tight white trousers and brooding demeanour, Firth attained virtual pin-up status during Pride and Prejudice's run on the BBC and is bound to turn female heads Down Under. Jennifer Ehle (who played Calypso in The Camomile Lawn) is Firth's perfect match as Lizzie Bennet, Austen's bright and witty heroine, the second of the five Bennet sisters, whose embarrassingly vulgar mother (played by Alison Steadman) has made it her mission in life to "secure" rich husbands for her variously accomplished daughters. Firth reportedly squired the delectable Ehle during the shooting of the $12 million series and production insiders fed the British press juicy stories of "bruised lips and sexual tension" during the couple's more intimate scenes together. There is certainly a seductive chemistry evident between the pair as the pent-up affections of their characters evolve into sensuality. Pride and Prejudice sexy? You bet. Thriller writer P.D. James once described Austen's work as "Mills and Boon written by a genius". The TV critic for The Guardian observed of Darcy's suppressed lust as portrayed by Firth: "He (Darcy) stares at Elizabeth like a ravenous mastiff that has been put on its honour not to touch that sausage". Andrew Davies, the ace screenwriter who adapted Middlemarch, House of Cards and To Play the King before turning his talent to Austen's classic, described the sexual attraction between Darcy and Lizzie as "the engine that drives the plot". Indeed, producer Sue Birtwistle originally sold the idea to Davies as a story about money and sex. "It's what those wonderful old films used to be about, all smouldering glances across the room," she said. "It's sexy the first time they touch hands when they dance. Those kinds of moments are exciting and much sexier than thrashing around in bed." British underwear retailers certainly recognised the power of the series' restrained sex appeal. The bosom-enhancing cut of the Bennet sisters' frocks inspired one company to offer customers the chance to recreate "Jane Austen's classic look" with a bustier designed to give the wearer "an authentic Pride and Prejudice cleavage". Where to watch it now: Pride and Prejudice (1995) is available now to stream in Australia on Stan, BritBox and Apple TV. It is a truth universally acknowledged that someone in possession of the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice on DVD* will never want for a melting moment. Jane Austen's stately story of strong-willed young Lizzie Bennet and her elegant dance of love with the aristocratic Mr Darcy was beautifully told over six compelling hours by the BBC. It's been 10 years since we first saw Firth's uptight Darcy swap bittersweet misunderstandings with Jennifer Ehle's forthright Miss Bennet. That intensely romantic series - TV's fifth adaptation of the Austen novel - remains the costume drama against which all other literary adaptations and period pieces are measured. This lively new Pride & Prejudice is the first feature film of the book since 1940, when Laurence Olivier matched wits with Greer Garson. It's a handsome, charming and warmly amusing comedy of manners particularly notable for its big-name supporting players and director Joe Wright's willingness to forgo pretty bonnets and sitting rooms for muddy hems and outdoor settings. But the Firth version is a hard act to follow. Keira Knightley (from Bend it Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur) pouts ever-so delicately as Lizzie, second and most sensible of the five Bennet sisters, whose insufferable, embarrassing mother (Brenda Blethyn) has made it her life's mission to marry them off. Spirited Lizzie resolves to follow her heart, never suspecting that it will lead her to Mr Darcy, a very rich and very handsome man who makes a very poor first impression. Knightley looks engagingly unglamorous as our heroine and Matthew MacFadyen (from TV spy show Spooks) is her telegenic match. But his aloof aristocrat Darcy comes on way too strong as an arrogant sourpuss and proves no competition (in wet shirt or dry) for Firth, though to be fair Firth had much more time on the telly to work his charms. More important, the chemistry between the leads lacks the exquisite tingle required to make us swoon when Wright rings down one of his stunning backdrops (their confrontation in a downpour, their reconciliation on a misty meadow in the golden glow of dawn). Making up for that somewhat are lovely performances by Blethyn as the cringefully improper Mrs Bennet, Donald Sutherland as her long-suffering but quietly rational husband, and Judi Dench as Mr Darcy's imperious aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Sutherland's Mr Bennet is probably the film's most engaging character, especially in the pivotal sequence in which he is touched by his favourite daughter's sense and sensibility. It's just a shame we're not as moved as he is. Where to watch it now: Pride & Prejudice (2005) is screening in selected cinemas and available now to stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel and Apple TV. Like the nerves of his wife are to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Bennet, we have high respect for these screen versions of Jane Austen. We talk, of course, of the BBC's 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and the 2005 Keira Knightley movie version of the great novelist's most popular book. To misquote Mr Bennet, these adaptations are our old friends and we have heard them mentioned with consideration these past 30 years at least. Yes, this year marks three decades since Firth's Mr Darcy steamed up TV screens in his clinging wet shirt, thrusting Austen's novels back into popular culture. And it's 20 years since director Joe Wright's big-screen Pride & Prejudice - with its noteworthy ampersand in the title - gave us Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy and that meme-worthy "hand flex" moment of emotional intensity. Both screen treatments continue to give ardent Austen fans the vapours and both, fittingly, are marking milestones in the 250th year since the great novelist herself was born. Which is all the excuse you need to revisit them - which I heartily recommend after my own recent weekend binge. With the Pride & Prejudice movie getting a cinema re-release to mark its 20th anniversary, a new Netflix screen version currently in the works and an Audible audiobook production featuring the likes of Bill Nighy and Glenn Close dropping worldwide on September 9, let's look back at which screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice wore it best: Darcy's wet shirt of 1995 or Darcy's hand flex of 2005? The Firth series premiered on UK TV screens on September 25, 1995. The Brits had already swooned for dashing Mr Darcy and lively Lizzie Bennett (played by Jenifer Ehle) by the time Australians got to see the ravishing rendition an absurd six months later. Yes, kids, back in 1995, pay-TV had only just started in Australia and most of us were stuck with only five channels to watch. Pride and Prejudice premiered on ABC TV on Sunday, March 3, 1996, in the hotly contested 7.30pm timeslot against 60 Minutes (following Burke's Backyard!) on Nine, Tim Allen sitcom Home Improvement on Seven and US drama Party of Five on Ten. "Surprisingly erotic" is how we described the lavish costume drama back then, noting the bust-enhancing necklines of the ladies' frocks and Firth's splendid smouldering as Darcy, the aloof but handsomely wealthy romantic hero. Here's how we previewed Pride and Prejudice 30 years ago: Popping the question has rarely been as eloquent as it is in the BBC's exquisite new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When novelist Jane Austen's well-bred, handsomely rich and most agreeably good-looking romantic hero, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, asks for the hand of outspoken country girl Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the restrained passion of the inscrutable dasher burns brightly on the screen. READ MORE: Says Darcy after exchanging one too many smouldering glances with Miss Bennet: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you ... I beg you most fervently to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife". Darcy puts his elegant proposition at the end of the third episode of the ravishing six-part drama as he reaches the half-way point on his rocky road to wedded bliss with the gorgeous Lizzie. Set to premiere on the ABC on Sunday, March 3, at 7.30pm and released last month on ABC Video*, Pride and Prejudice went to air in Britain late last year and had critics raving and set the hearts of male and female viewers racing. While some academies and purists from the Jane Austen Society labelled the show a "romantic counterfeit" of the book, which was first published in 1813, an average audience of 10 million Britons watched the TV version of the elaborate love story unfold over six weeks. More than 100,000 fans couldn't even wait for the episodes to roll around and raced out to buy the video*. Austen's novel has been given some narrative surgery (including a new-look happy ending) in the move to TV but the compelling refinement of the story and characters, the exchanges of verbal wit and the moral remain gloriously intact. Colin Firth (seen recently on the ABC in the British movie A Month in the Country) stars as Mr Darcy, Austen's tall, dark, handsome but mysteriously aloof leading man. Firth is fabulous as the character that set the standard for other famous romantic heroes like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. In Darcy's tight white trousers and brooding demeanour, Firth attained virtual pin-up status during Pride and Prejudice's run on the BBC and is bound to turn female heads Down Under. Jennifer Ehle (who played Calypso in The Camomile Lawn) is Firth's perfect match as Lizzie Bennet, Austen's bright and witty heroine, the second of the five Bennet sisters, whose embarrassingly vulgar mother (played by Alison Steadman) has made it her mission in life to "secure" rich husbands for her variously accomplished daughters. Firth reportedly squired the delectable Ehle during the shooting of the $12 million series and production insiders fed the British press juicy stories of "bruised lips and sexual tension" during the couple's more intimate scenes together. There is certainly a seductive chemistry evident between the pair as the pent-up affections of their characters evolve into sensuality. Pride and Prejudice sexy? You bet. Thriller writer P.D. James once described Austen's work as "Mills and Boon written by a genius". The TV critic for The Guardian observed of Darcy's suppressed lust as portrayed by Firth: "He (Darcy) stares at Elizabeth like a ravenous mastiff that has been put on its honour not to touch that sausage". Andrew Davies, the ace screenwriter who adapted Middlemarch, House of Cards and To Play the King before turning his talent to Austen's classic, described the sexual attraction between Darcy and Lizzie as "the engine that drives the plot". Indeed, producer Sue Birtwistle originally sold the idea to Davies as a story about money and sex. "It's what those wonderful old films used to be about, all smouldering glances across the room," she said. "It's sexy the first time they touch hands when they dance. Those kinds of moments are exciting and much sexier than thrashing around in bed." British underwear retailers certainly recognised the power of the series' restrained sex appeal. The bosom-enhancing cut of the Bennet sisters' frocks inspired one company to offer customers the chance to recreate "Jane Austen's classic look" with a bustier designed to give the wearer "an authentic Pride and Prejudice cleavage". Where to watch it now: Pride and Prejudice (1995) is available now to stream in Australia on Stan, BritBox and Apple TV. It is a truth universally acknowledged that someone in possession of the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice on DVD* will never want for a melting moment. Jane Austen's stately story of strong-willed young Lizzie Bennet and her elegant dance of love with the aristocratic Mr Darcy was beautifully told over six compelling hours by the BBC. It's been 10 years since we first saw Firth's uptight Darcy swap bittersweet misunderstandings with Jennifer Ehle's forthright Miss Bennet. That intensely romantic series - TV's fifth adaptation of the Austen novel - remains the costume drama against which all other literary adaptations and period pieces are measured. This lively new Pride & Prejudice is the first feature film of the book since 1940, when Laurence Olivier matched wits with Greer Garson. It's a handsome, charming and warmly amusing comedy of manners particularly notable for its big-name supporting players and director Joe Wright's willingness to forgo pretty bonnets and sitting rooms for muddy hems and outdoor settings. But the Firth version is a hard act to follow. Keira Knightley (from Bend it Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur) pouts ever-so delicately as Lizzie, second and most sensible of the five Bennet sisters, whose insufferable, embarrassing mother (Brenda Blethyn) has made it her life's mission to marry them off. Spirited Lizzie resolves to follow her heart, never suspecting that it will lead her to Mr Darcy, a very rich and very handsome man who makes a very poor first impression. Knightley looks engagingly unglamorous as our heroine and Matthew MacFadyen (from TV spy show Spooks) is her telegenic match. But his aloof aristocrat Darcy comes on way too strong as an arrogant sourpuss and proves no competition (in wet shirt or dry) for Firth, though to be fair Firth had much more time on the telly to work his charms. More important, the chemistry between the leads lacks the exquisite tingle required to make us swoon when Wright rings down one of his stunning backdrops (their confrontation in a downpour, their reconciliation on a misty meadow in the golden glow of dawn). Making up for that somewhat are lovely performances by Blethyn as the cringefully improper Mrs Bennet, Donald Sutherland as her long-suffering but quietly rational husband, and Judi Dench as Mr Darcy's imperious aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Sutherland's Mr Bennet is probably the film's most engaging character, especially in the pivotal sequence in which he is touched by his favourite daughter's sense and sensibility. It's just a shame we're not as moved as he is. Where to watch it now: Pride & Prejudice (2005) is screening in selected cinemas and available now to stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel and Apple TV. Like the nerves of his wife are to Pride and Prejudice's Mr Bennet, we have high respect for these screen versions of Jane Austen. We talk, of course, of the BBC's 1995 TV version of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and the 2005 Keira Knightley movie version of the great novelist's most popular book. To misquote Mr Bennet, these adaptations are our old friends and we have heard them mentioned with consideration these past 30 years at least. Yes, this year marks three decades since Firth's Mr Darcy steamed up TV screens in his clinging wet shirt, thrusting Austen's novels back into popular culture. And it's 20 years since director Joe Wright's big-screen Pride & Prejudice - with its noteworthy ampersand in the title - gave us Matthew Macfadyen as Darcy and that meme-worthy "hand flex" moment of emotional intensity. Both screen treatments continue to give ardent Austen fans the vapours and both, fittingly, are marking milestones in the 250th year since the great novelist herself was born. Which is all the excuse you need to revisit them - which I heartily recommend after my own recent weekend binge. With the Pride & Prejudice movie getting a cinema re-release to mark its 20th anniversary, a new Netflix screen version currently in the works and an Audible audiobook production featuring the likes of Bill Nighy and Glenn Close dropping worldwide on September 9, let's look back at which screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice wore it best: Darcy's wet shirt of 1995 or Darcy's hand flex of 2005? The Firth series premiered on UK TV screens on September 25, 1995. The Brits had already swooned for dashing Mr Darcy and lively Lizzie Bennett (played by Jenifer Ehle) by the time Australians got to see the ravishing rendition an absurd six months later. Yes, kids, back in 1995, pay-TV had only just started in Australia and most of us were stuck with only five channels to watch. Pride and Prejudice premiered on ABC TV on Sunday, March 3, 1996, in the hotly contested 7.30pm timeslot against 60 Minutes (following Burke's Backyard!) on Nine, Tim Allen sitcom Home Improvement on Seven and US drama Party of Five on Ten. "Surprisingly erotic" is how we described the lavish costume drama back then, noting the bust-enhancing necklines of the ladies' frocks and Firth's splendid smouldering as Darcy, the aloof but handsomely wealthy romantic hero. Here's how we previewed Pride and Prejudice 30 years ago: Popping the question has rarely been as eloquent as it is in the BBC's exquisite new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. When novelist Jane Austen's well-bred, handsomely rich and most agreeably good-looking romantic hero, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, asks for the hand of outspoken country girl Miss Elizabeth Bennet, the restrained passion of the inscrutable dasher burns brightly on the screen. READ MORE: Says Darcy after exchanging one too many smouldering glances with Miss Bennet: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you ... I beg you most fervently to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife". Darcy puts his elegant proposition at the end of the third episode of the ravishing six-part drama as he reaches the half-way point on his rocky road to wedded bliss with the gorgeous Lizzie. Set to premiere on the ABC on Sunday, March 3, at 7.30pm and released last month on ABC Video*, Pride and Prejudice went to air in Britain late last year and had critics raving and set the hearts of male and female viewers racing. While some academies and purists from the Jane Austen Society labelled the show a "romantic counterfeit" of the book, which was first published in 1813, an average audience of 10 million Britons watched the TV version of the elaborate love story unfold over six weeks. More than 100,000 fans couldn't even wait for the episodes to roll around and raced out to buy the video*. Austen's novel has been given some narrative surgery (including a new-look happy ending) in the move to TV but the compelling refinement of the story and characters, the exchanges of verbal wit and the moral remain gloriously intact. Colin Firth (seen recently on the ABC in the British movie A Month in the Country) stars as Mr Darcy, Austen's tall, dark, handsome but mysteriously aloof leading man. Firth is fabulous as the character that set the standard for other famous romantic heroes like Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind. In Darcy's tight white trousers and brooding demeanour, Firth attained virtual pin-up status during Pride and Prejudice's run on the BBC and is bound to turn female heads Down Under. Jennifer Ehle (who played Calypso in The Camomile Lawn) is Firth's perfect match as Lizzie Bennet, Austen's bright and witty heroine, the second of the five Bennet sisters, whose embarrassingly vulgar mother (played by Alison Steadman) has made it her mission in life to "secure" rich husbands for her variously accomplished daughters. Firth reportedly squired the delectable Ehle during the shooting of the $12 million series and production insiders fed the British press juicy stories of "bruised lips and sexual tension" during the couple's more intimate scenes together. There is certainly a seductive chemistry evident between the pair as the pent-up affections of their characters evolve into sensuality. Pride and Prejudice sexy? You bet. Thriller writer P.D. James once described Austen's work as "Mills and Boon written by a genius". The TV critic for The Guardian observed of Darcy's suppressed lust as portrayed by Firth: "He (Darcy) stares at Elizabeth like a ravenous mastiff that has been put on its honour not to touch that sausage". Andrew Davies, the ace screenwriter who adapted Middlemarch, House of Cards and To Play the King before turning his talent to Austen's classic, described the sexual attraction between Darcy and Lizzie as "the engine that drives the plot". Indeed, producer Sue Birtwistle originally sold the idea to Davies as a story about money and sex. "It's what those wonderful old films used to be about, all smouldering glances across the room," she said. "It's sexy the first time they touch hands when they dance. Those kinds of moments are exciting and much sexier than thrashing around in bed." British underwear retailers certainly recognised the power of the series' restrained sex appeal. The bosom-enhancing cut of the Bennet sisters' frocks inspired one company to offer customers the chance to recreate "Jane Austen's classic look" with a bustier designed to give the wearer "an authentic Pride and Prejudice cleavage". Where to watch it now: Pride and Prejudice (1995) is available now to stream in Australia on Stan, BritBox and Apple TV. It is a truth universally acknowledged that someone in possession of the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice on DVD* will never want for a melting moment. Jane Austen's stately story of strong-willed young Lizzie Bennet and her elegant dance of love with the aristocratic Mr Darcy was beautifully told over six compelling hours by the BBC. It's been 10 years since we first saw Firth's uptight Darcy swap bittersweet misunderstandings with Jennifer Ehle's forthright Miss Bennet. That intensely romantic series - TV's fifth adaptation of the Austen novel - remains the costume drama against which all other literary adaptations and period pieces are measured. This lively new Pride & Prejudice is the first feature film of the book since 1940, when Laurence Olivier matched wits with Greer Garson. It's a handsome, charming and warmly amusing comedy of manners particularly notable for its big-name supporting players and director Joe Wright's willingness to forgo pretty bonnets and sitting rooms for muddy hems and outdoor settings. But the Firth version is a hard act to follow. Keira Knightley (from Bend it Like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean and King Arthur) pouts ever-so delicately as Lizzie, second and most sensible of the five Bennet sisters, whose insufferable, embarrassing mother (Brenda Blethyn) has made it her life's mission to marry them off. Spirited Lizzie resolves to follow her heart, never suspecting that it will lead her to Mr Darcy, a very rich and very handsome man who makes a very poor first impression. Knightley looks engagingly unglamorous as our heroine and Matthew MacFadyen (from TV spy show Spooks) is her telegenic match. But his aloof aristocrat Darcy comes on way too strong as an arrogant sourpuss and proves no competition (in wet shirt or dry) for Firth, though to be fair Firth had much more time on the telly to work his charms. More important, the chemistry between the leads lacks the exquisite tingle required to make us swoon when Wright rings down one of his stunning backdrops (their confrontation in a downpour, their reconciliation on a misty meadow in the golden glow of dawn). Making up for that somewhat are lovely performances by Blethyn as the cringefully improper Mrs Bennet, Donald Sutherland as her long-suffering but quietly rational husband, and Judi Dench as Mr Darcy's imperious aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. Sutherland's Mr Bennet is probably the film's most engaging character, especially in the pivotal sequence in which he is touched by his favourite daughter's sense and sensibility. It's just a shame we're not as moved as he is. Where to watch it now: Pride & Prejudice (2005) is screening in selected cinemas and available now to stream on Netflix, Binge, Foxtel and Apple TV.
