Perspectives on Pride and Prejudice: The BBC

by Robert Seatter, Head of BBC History

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austenā€™s best loved novel, has been adapted by the BBC for television at least five separate times, including a very early version made in Alexandra Palace in 1938 when TV was really in its infancy. But this 1995 production was the version that signalled a whole new approach to TV adaptation of the classics. With a screenplay by Andrew Davies, it brought out the sexual charge only implicit in the novel, removing Austen from her previous place in the TV schedule: cosy Sunday teatime viewing.

Instead, Daviesā€™ adaptation gave us ā€˜the male gazeā€™ on a classic text, and introduced a Darcy in all his physicality. He fences, he strips and most famously he goes for a dip in his lake at Pemberley. As Davies himself said of his unstuffy approach to literary adaptation for the screen: One of the things Iā€™ve always thought is a drag in so many period adaptations is that they are always buttoned up to the neckā€¦ Iā€™m always looking for excuses to get them out of their clothes.

Playing opposite Firth was Jennifer Ehle as a sprightly Lizzy Bennet, with Susannah Harker and Crispin Bonham Carter as uncertain lovers Jane Bennet and Mr Bingley, Julia Sawalha as flirtatious Lydia, and contemporary character actors Alison Steadman and Benjamin Whitrow as the beleaguered Mr and Mrs Bennet. Producer Sue Birtwistle directs her cast with verve and modernity, reflecting Daviesā€™ adaptation, while Dinah Collinsā€™ costumes are also designed to look natural and wearable ā€“ unlike those in many costume dramas ā€“ allowing Lizzy to traipse around the countryside and Lydia to dance giddily about the ballroom.

The six-part drama was a phenomenal success, with an audience of ten million captivated until the very end, while 100,000 video box sets flew off shop shelves. And the show is still on air 30 years later!

This Pride and Prejudice really reinvented the classic drama and made Davies the go-to literary adaptor of the next two decades. His later adaptations for the BBC included Austenā€™s Sense and Sensibility, as well as other classics such as Middlemarch, Bleak House, and War and Peace, all refreshed for 21st century audiences.