Latest news with #MissAusten
Times
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Gill Hornby on Jane Austen and why we need more funny family novels
'The only thing to do with novels is to set them in the past. The present is ungraspable,' Gill Hornby says with the axiomatic certainty of Jane Austen. When we meet at Kintbury station in Berkshire, the bestselling author, 66, has just returned from Los Angeles, where she's been promoting the BBC adaptation of her novel Miss Austen, the first in her series about the beloved 19th-century author and her large and lively family. On our walk to her home we cover much of the 'ungraspable' present — Trump, wars, unhinged tech billionaires, dating trends and the rise of the Reform Party — before concluding we have more appetite for Regency England. Even if it wasn't much fun for women. 'It's an appealing world
Digital Trends
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
3 PBS shows you should watch in May 2025
Table of Contents Table of Contents Miss Austen (2025) Great Performances — Yellow Face (2025) Great Performances — Kiss Me, Kate (2025) It may seem like there's a shortage of original programming on PBS in May, but that's only because the supply of murder mystery shows from Europe has dried up for the month. There is still a new period drama, Miss Austen, as well as fresh installments of Great Performances, which brings Broadway and West End musicals to your home without costing you a thing. PBS is a public service, and you can watch it for free on your local channel or stream the shows online. There's still plenty of time to catch the other new shows on PBS in May. You can even go back and revisit the great PBS shows to watch in April as well. For now, here are our recommendations for the three PBS shows you should watch in April. Recommended Videos Are you looking for more shows to watch this month? If so, check out our guides on the best shows on Netflix, the best shows on Hulu, and the best shows on Disney+. Miss Austen (2025) You may assume that Jane Austen is the title character of Miss Austen, but she's not the only one. Cassandra Austen (Keeley Hawes) takes a central role in a story that explains why she destroyed her late sister's letter. This four-part series begins in 1830 when an older Cassandra engages in a little subterfuge in order to covertly find the letters her sister wrote, but it isn't immediately clear if destroying that correspondence is protecting Jane's legacy or her own. The only thing we do know is that Cassandra's life hasn't turned out the way she hoped. Through flashbacks, the show follows young Cassandra (Synnøve Karlsen) when she was very close to Jane and in love with a man named Tom Fowle (Calam Lynch). Both Jane and Cassandra are also convinced that the latter will marry Tom. Heartache lies ahead, and even Jane's bond with her sister may be tested. Watch Miss Austen on PBS. Great Performances — Yellow Face (2025) Lost star Daniel Dae Kim headlines this production of David Henry Hwang's Yellow Face and essentially plays Hwang himself in this farce that was loosely based on the writer's life. In the play, DHH openly criticized Miss Saigon for using non-Asian actors to play Asian roles. When producing his own play about the controversy, DHH makes the same mistake by casting a Caucasian actor in an Asian role. DHH is so worried about the apparent hypocrisy and the impact on his reputation that he convinces the actor to go along with it and pretend to be Asian. However, he's enraged when the actor embraces being Asian and starts to play the role in all aspects of his life. Watch Great Performances — Yellow Face on PBS on May 16. Great Performances — Kiss Me, Kate (2025) Kiss Me, Kate is a classic musical that takes place during the production of a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Stephanie J. Block is playing the lead actress, Lilli Vanessi, who is upset with her ex-lover and boyfriend, Fred Graham (Adrian Dunbar), who is also her co-star and director in the new play. Fred has eyes for Lili's younger co-star, but his ex accidentally intercepts flowers meant for his new crush and declares that she is still in love with Fred. That puts Fred in a very delicate position, and he'll be in even bigger trouble if Lilli finds out that the flowers were never meant for her. Somehow, amidst all of this relationship drama, they still have a musical they need to put on. Watch Great Performances — Kiss Me, Kate on PBS on May 30.
Los Angeles Times
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Miss Austen' on PBS wonderfully delivers the love and loss Jane Austen fans know by heart
If I write, It is a truth universally acknowledged that to begin an essay with the words 'It is a truth universally acknowledged' marks the writer out as a person of taste and good humor who has read Jane Austen, it is mostly to mark myself as a person of taste and good humor who has etc., etc. But it is a truth much acknowledged that we owe her more than that much-used opening gambit. Because Austen's prose is so elegant and clear, her wit so sharp, her comedy so dry, her irony so delicious, her observations so acute, her heroines so indomitable, her novels have lived on for two centuries. They offer a vacation destination for the mind, a world in which to luxuriate. Rich in characterization, compelling in their plots, fascinating in their social historicity, lively and lifelike in their dialogue, her books, published beginning in 1811, have the quality of seeming both of and ahead of their time, and they are particularly ripe for adaptation to the screen. Many readers see in them the roots of modern romantic comedy. And because there are only seven finished novels, three of them posthumous and one never submitted for publication, and because we are a species that always wants more — or, said another way, can't leave well enough alone — the ACLU (the Austen Cinematic and Literary Universe) continues to expand with sequels, pastiches, modernizations and reimaginings. 'Miss Austen,' a wonderful new limited series premiering Sunday on PBS' 'Masterpiece,' takes a biographical fiction approach. Adapted by Andrea Gibb from Gill Hornby's 2020 novel, it centers on Jane's sister, Cassandra — the title applies to either sister — whose historical claim to fame, or infamy, is that she burned the bulk of Jane's letters after her death. (She is not made out to be a villain here.) It has many of the qualities of an Austen novel — because why else bother? — though having to adhere to the facts of actual lives does steer some plot lines in a darker direction. The series runs in two timelines, full of parallel action and mirrored themes. In 1830, 13 years after the death of Jane Austen (Patsy Ferran), Cassandra (Keeley Hawes, deep and affecting) gets a message that the husband of the sister's late friend Eliza Fowle (Madeline Walker) is dying. Cassandra rushes to their home, partly out of friendship — she is as good as an aunt to Eliza's daughters Isabella (Rose Leslie) and Beth (Clare Foster), who, like the Austens, seem to be on a road to spinsterhood — and partly to lay her hands on Jane's letters to Eliza, in order to keep safe from future historians whatever reflected badly on her sister. Also after the letters is Cassandra's self-important sister-in-law Mary (Jessica Hynes), who is also Eliza's sister, who thinks they could provide material for a book on her late husband, Austen brother James (Patrick Knowles). In any case, they are mainly a device to send Cassandra, who finds and reads them secretly, into a series of flashbacks, some happy, some regretful, as she reflects upon her life with Jane and paths taken and not taken. Synnøve Karlsen plays the younger Cassandra, and if I may say so, recalls Jennifer Ehle, who played Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy in the peerless 1995 BBC 'Pride and Prejudice.' ('You are my Lizzie Bennet to the root,' Jane tells Cassandra, seeming to agree with me.) Each storyline also finds the Austens and Fowles displaced from their homes into reduced circumstances. The Austen parents — optimistic father (Kevin McNally) and somewhat hysterical mother (Phyllis Logan) — could easily serve as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet in a 'Pride and Prejudice' adaptation, while new vicar Mr. Dundas (Thomas Coombes), chasing the Fowles from theirs, feels like a deliberate callback to the obsequious Mr. Collins in 'P&P.' But the main thrust of the series is sisterly love and self-sacrifice, tangled with Austenesque questions of marriage and financial security, both between Cassandra and Jane, and in the 'present-day' story line, Isabella and Beth Fowles. There is much presumptuous matchmaking as romantic possibilities come through the door and are sometimes shown it: tall, dark, ahistorical Henry Hobday (Max Irons) in the former case, described by Jane as 'the model of perfection, which if I may say is most infuriating, for you know as a woman of many faults, I abhor faultlessness in others,' and a poor but dedicated doctor, Mr. Lidderdale (Alfred Enoch) in the latter. 'I must know if she is to be married!' cries Isabella, regarding Anne Elliot, the heroine of Jane's 'Persuasion,' which Cassandra has been reading aloud. 'Is that the only outcome that would be happy?' asks Cassandra. 'Yes.' 'Oh, Isabella, there are so many other ways for women like us to find happiness,' says Cassandra, underlining the comparison between the two sets of sisters. 'Writing was Jane's greatest love; she took great comfort from the heroes in her books. But in life, no man was ever worthy.' Like Isabella, the viewer has their own ideas of happiness, of course, and, all things being equal would prefer a world in which romantic love comes to all. Then again, few of us are geniuses dedicated first to work that will transcend time. And not to spoil what must be obvious to everyone but the characters, but the Fowles story does provide clever opportunities for a conclusion more in keeping with the Austen corpus. The finale should run you through a pack of handkerchiefs, unless you are some sort of heartless monster.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Bella Ramsey on Filming ‘The Last of Us' with Isabela Merced: ‘She'd Be Like This Little Sprite' on Set
[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for , Episode 3, 'The Path.' Asked which of Ellie's relationships they were most excited to see on screen in 'The Last of Us' Season 2, star Bella Ramsey didn't hesitate to pick Dina, played by actress Isabela Merced. Ramsey described the character's beloved queer love interest as the 'most prevalent' person in Ellie's life this season and gave IndieWire a glimpse into the odd-couple dynamic we saw taking shape in Episode 3, 'The Path.' More from IndieWire How 'Miss Austen' Draws Fine Art from an Act of Real-Life Cultural Vandalism Paul Feig and Elizabeth Perkins on 'Another Simple Favor,' '70s Cinema, Faye Dunaway, and the 'Misogyny' of Lively vs. Kendrick Feud Rumors 'She's so brilliant, and I'm really excited for people to see how wonderful she is and how much light and energy and humor she brings to this season,' Ramsey said of Merced. 'She really just had this unwavering energy about her the whole time, which was really great for being on set. When I was like an old tired grandpa, she'd be like this little sprite that would come in and just make everybody party.' Reviewing the apocalyptic drama's latest installment, IndieWire's Ben Travers analyzed how Ellie's road to revenge might impact her self-image. In Episode 3, we see our grieving hero trying on a hardened, cool-guy exterior in memory of Joel (Pedro Pascal) — but even admitting to herself that it doesn't fit. 'She's trying on a persona she admired and lost,' writes Travers, referencing a scene where Ellie acknowledges she's 'trying to sound like a badass.' 'She's becoming Joel as a way to remember him.' Not even Pascal, HBO's hunkiest Chilean-American actor, can make romance mid-mushroom-Armageddon sound like a good idea, but Ellie's complex grief is at the core of her compelling will-they-won't-they with Dina. Toss in Dina's ex-boyfriend, Jesse (Young Mazino), and the narrative layers he'll be bringing to the table later, and you've got the sort of drama that demands to be a TV show. 'The sort of triangle of the three of us is something that's really cool and was really fun to play,' Ramsey said. 'It's really important that we continue to have representation on screen that doesn't feel like it's ticking a box in terms of representation.' Known for major adaptations ('Dora and the Lost City of Gold') and big franchises ('Alien: Romulus'), Merced was prepared for the pressure that came with adapting 'The Last of Us' video game. She told IndieWire, 'Having that experience of not wanting to upset a fan base with my portrayal was essential. And then also myself being a fan, not wanting to upset myself, I think, is the biggest fear I have. I'm my own worst enemy, my own biggest critic, so I definitely don't want that.' Describing the mood on the production, Mazino said, 'The vibe of the set was chilled. The story we were creating was not.' 'The Last of Us' Season 2 airs new episodes on Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max. Best of IndieWire Martin Scorsese's Favorite Movies: 86 Films the Director Wants You to See Christopher Nolan's Favorite Movies: 44 Films the Director Wants You to See The 25 Saddest TV Character Deaths of This Century
Time Magazine
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Miss Austen Turns the Jane Austen Marriage Plot on Its Head
No novelist in the English language is more closely associated with the marriage plot than Jane Austen. That literary trope turned rom-com convention gives structure to all six of her masterworks—which goes to show that the romance genre, far from mere escapism, can be an ideal lens through which to observe a society's values. But another truth universally acknowledged about Austen complicates the happy weddings that conclude each book: The author never married. She spared her heroines the social and financial precarity she suffered. The realities of single womanhood in Regency England, and for the Austen family in particular, are at the center of Miss Austen, a four-part BBC adaptation of Gill Hornby's 2020 novel that will premiere stateside May 4 on PBS's Masterpiece. Set more than a decade after Jane's untimely death, this bit of historical fiction follows her beloved older (and only) sister, Cassandra, sensitively portrayed by executive producer Keeley Hawes, and imagines the circumstances that led her to destroy thousands of the author's personal letters. Its primary characters are unmarried women. If you can get past the mannered stiffness typical of Masterpiece fare, it loosens up as it evolves into a perceptive and affectionate portrait of the kind of life Austen lived but barely wrote about. Solitary in middle age, Hawes' Cassandra—also never married—is roused from a cozy routine of talking to goats and reading in bed when a letter arrives informing her of a family friend's imminent death. Against the advice of her correspondent, she hastens to Fulwar Fowle's (Felix Scott) bedside. Cassandra has a history with the Fowles; she was betrothed to Fulwar's brother Tom (played in flashbacks by Calam Lynch) before he died on an expedition to the West Indies. But it isn't sentimentality, for the most part, that motivates her to make the trip. 'There are certain items there of a personal nature that belong here,' she tells the servant seeing her off. Namely, the letters Jane wrote to Fulwar's late wife, Eliza, a close friend of the Austen girls. Of course she finds them, and the letters transport her back to the girls' youth, with the young Cassandra played by Synnøve Karlsen and Jane by a wonderfully animated Patsy Ferran, reviving precious memories but also revealing the author's unvarnished thoughts about her sister's choices. There are perhaps too many costume-drama boilerplate shots of Hawes gazing tearily at yellowed sheets of stationary. But they're worth it as a conduit to Cassandra's and Jane's 20s, a period when both women fielded suitors; the younger Austen grew into her voice as a writer, thanks in part to the encouragement of the elder; and each emerged as the most important person in the other's life. What seems to wound the grown-up Cassandra most, in the letters, is Jane's frustration at her sister's rejection of a love match worthy of Pride and Prejudice. 'She chose insecurity,' Jane writes to Eliza. 'I did it for you, too,' Cassandra murmurs, half a lifetime later. Would we even know the name Jane Austen if she hadn't taken such good care of the vivacious but also fragile, depressive writer in life and her work in death? Elsewhere at the Fowles' home, Kintbury, Mary Austen (Jessica Hynes), the haughty widow of Cassandra's brother James, is bustling around with notions of commissioning a joint biography of Jane and her late husband—whose undistinguished poetry she prefers to Jane's already-renowned prose. And in the wake of Fulwar's death, his conscientious daughter Isabella (Rose Leslie) is preparing the residence for the arrival of a replacement vicar (Thomas Coombes' lightly ridiculous Mr. Dundas), as she looks ahead to her own uncertain future. Cassandra has promised Fulwar that she'll set her up with one of his other two daughters, but neither situation seems ideal. (One bizarre Fowle sister is a highlight of the show.) She also notices romantic tension between Isabella and the local doctor, Mr. Lidderdale (Alfred Enoch). With its contrived conclusion, the latter storyline puts a somewhat ill-fitting bow on the series. What lingers after its giddiness dissipates are the experiences of so many single women, some widowed, others never married. Isabella's unceremonious ejection from the home where she grew up. Mary's fixation on commemorating James' dubious talents. The genuine bond between Isabella and her servant, Dinah (Mirren Mack). The adversity Cassandra, Jane, and their mother face after the Austen patriarch's death. Jane's inability to accept a loveless marriage that would finance a high lifestyle but rob her of time to write. Cassandra's lifelong protection of Jane—a devotion so fierce, in Hornby's scenario, it drives her to destroy thousands of pages of writing by one of the greatest authors who ever walked the earth. Austen's marriage plots reward her righteous heroines, granting them love and companionship they crave as well as wealth and respectability they need in a society that places too much value on superficial things. Particularly in chronicling the sacrifices Cassandra happily made for Jane, Miss Austen suggests that there was always more than one way for a woman to lead a fulfilling life.
