The Telegraph has an article about why-we-keep-adapting-Jane-yada-yada that contains the somewhat interesting news that Lost in Austen will be broadcast in ITV in September.

Lizzie enters our modern world through a portal in the Bennet wardrobe and ends up in a bedsit in Hammersmith; while Amanda moves into 19th-century Longbourn with the rest of the Bennet family. It’s every teenage girl’s fantasy: sleeping in a bed with Jane, curling Lydia and Mary’s hair. Bingley makes a pass at you, while Darcy smoulders and mentally ravishes you. The plot pretty much writes itself. You just step into the pages of your favourite book.

Why don’t they just name the main character Mary Sue and get it over with?

The audience’s desire for courtly love is fine. It doesn’t even matter if they play loose with the plot. Janeites are horrified by the inappropriate kissing, but the final frames of Adrian Shergold’s extraordinary 2007 film Persuasion, where Sally Hawkins literally ran to claim her love, pounding along the streets of Bath as the camera whirled and swooped, were brilliant.

Hmm.

The audience’s desire for courtly love is fine. It doesn’t even matter if they play loose with the plot. Janeites are horrified by the inappropriate kissing, but the final frames of Adrian Shergold’s extraordinary 2007 film Persuasion, where Sally Hawkins literally ran to claim her love, pounding along the streets of Bath as the camera whirled and swooped, were brilliant really weird.

There, fixed that for you.

And master adaptor Andrew Davies is a modern god for putting the sex and violence back into Austen’s novels.

Put it BACK into Austen’s novels? What?

The recent rape scene that opened Davies’ BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility stopped any of us swooning over Willoughby.

We were too busy trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

But you know casting is not the same as character. Impressionable middle-aged men may fawn over Keira in Pride and Prejudice, but casting Billie Piper (all tits and pout) in Mansfield Park was a grievous mistake. She’s a lovely young actress, but playing moralistic Fanny Price? Someone should be shot. So I’m not losing sleep over the Bond girl in Lost in Austen.

Casting is the least of their problems, really.

It’s late and we’re tired. Dorothy has the Cluebat; feel free to swing away.

Here’s this week’s lineup of local events of interest to Jane Austen fans. Check them out–one might be near your hometown!

July 26-7, 2008, Petworth House, West Sussex - Dandies, Duelling and Dancing…. Petworth in the time of Jane Austen, 1820 - Petworth House (”Dude…it’s PEMBERLEY!” she said, her eyes wide in astonishment) hosts a two-day historical event.

See a company of Redcoats, smugglers encampment, rural crafts, cooking demonstrations in the historic kitchen, music in the House, have-a-go activities such as fencing and archery, Regency dancing, square piano music and our resident hermit will also be here. Come back with us to the time of Jane Austen and enjoy a spectacular family day out.

Tickets are £3-8 and available at the door–no prebooking necessary.

August 8 and 11, 2008, Edinburgh: The producer of “An Evening at Pemberley,” about which we posted in last week’s edition, posted in comments about the reported problems with Fringe tickets and some information about getting the tickets.

Welcome to another Tuesday Open Thread. Here’s a few links that didn’t quite make the cut for full posts over the last week for various reasons, but we thought our Gentle Readers might find them interesting anyway. Or not.

• Remember last week we posted a link to an article comparing British politicians to various characters from literature? The Daily Mail took it a step further. Dorothy will be passing out the brain bleach shortly.
• Holiday with the Wentworths
• MP99: It’s all about teh children!!!1!one!
• Why Becoming Jane is Evil, Exhibit 839204 (Head Splodey Warning)
• Which reminds us: Funniest. Becoming Expedient Jane Review. Ever. (and here’s part 2) (It’s from a “splog,” or spam blog, which is why we screencapped rather than providing a link. They exist solely to get people to visit them and expose them to hits for ads. The modus operandi for such places is to take content from other blogs, but since authors tend to find it and demand their content be removed, it looks like they ran random words through a thesaurus program of some kind, resulting in such hilarity as “Mansfield Forest Preserve.”)
• Chick lit: It’s the Brits’ fault, starting with that evil beeyotch Jane Austen (Elvis Wept Warning)

So what’s new and happening in your patch of Austenville?

If so, perhaps you can help us out. Alert Janeite Cinthia spotted a post on the IMDB forum (and the same poster at the PBS forum) in which the poster claimed that certain scenes on the Region 2 DVD are missing on the Region 1 DVD. The missing scenes were described as:

The scenes that I remember are a scene where Colonel Brandon asks Elinor to speak to Edward about offering him a living on his estate. The other is when Marianne is ill, Mrs. Jennings comes in and has a conversation with Elinor.

If our Gentle Readers who own the Region 2 DVD can check if those scenes are on their DVDs, we would be most grateful.

(We know today is a sad day in some parts of Janeiteville, but we prefer to let other pens dwell on misery.)

Welcome to another edition of Friday Bookblogging, in which we discuss Jane Austen’s novels and related topics.

Scathing Book Reviews collects some, er, scathing book reviews of Pride and Prejudice from Amazon. Most of them seem to be from people who were forced! forced! to read it in school, clearly cruel and unusual punishment.

This story was written in the early Victorian era, and hence it is quite old. We need to move on from the old ‘classics’. They mean nothing to readers (are there many left?) of the modern society.

Early Victorian era. Elvis wept. But, in future, they might find the bluffer’s guide useful when it becomes clear that they should have paid more attention in English class.

I once confessed to not knowing what Pride And Prejudice was about (now I’ve seen the film so I know) and the person I was chatting to reacted as though I’d punched her.

Bookcrossing hits Ireland:

Grace Wynne-Jones on a craze that could make a copy of Sense and Sensibility mellow out in California and then have it fly off to Florence, having been found in a phone booth in Prague. Wonder what Jane Austen would make of that?

She probably would have thought it the ultimate circulating-library!

That’s it for another edition of Friday Bookblogging, Gentle Readers. Until next time, always remember: Books Are Nice!

Here’s the latest listing of upcoming events of interest to Jane Austen fans. One of them might just be in your neighborhood! (And we love post-event reports!)

July 18, 2008, Pasadena, California: Laurie Viera Rigler will give a reading from her book, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, at Vroman’s Bookstore at 7 p.m.

August 8 and 11, 2008, Edinburgh: “An Evening at Pemberley“: As part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, soprano Patrice Boyd will sing music from Jane Austen’s time period.

The music features classical selections from Mozart, Handel, Haydn, Purcell, Bishop and other composers of the era. To complete the historical mood, Miss Boyd will perform in period dress in the handsome Georgian oval of St. Andrew’s and St. George’s Church, one of Edinburgh’s premier classical music venues.

Gentle Readers not in the environs of Edinburgh might want to scroll down to the bottom of the page, which has a list of upcoming concerts in North America.

Note: Getting Local With Jane will be published on Thursday from now on. All part of our ongoing improvement efforts here at AustenBlog World Headquarters.

Normblog has republished a lecture given to the Jane Austen Society in 2006 by Richard Jenkyns, author of A Fine Brush on Ivory and a descendant of Jane Austen’s brother James. Professor Jenkyns’s lecture is titled “Boredom and Jane Austen” and it’s quite interesting. A few tidbits from the first part:

In my childhood my great-aunts sometimes seemed to speak about her as though she were a lately deceased member of the family whom they had known themselves; and as they seemed to me enormously ancient - and indeed they were fairly ancient - it took me a while to work out that the novelist had died a full 60 years before even the eldest of them was born. But there was a sense of her abiding presence. In the drawing-room of the house shared by two of those great-aunts sat Jane Austen’s writing desk. After their deaths it passed to my cousin Joan Austen-Leigh, who later very generously gave it to the British Library. Many of us saw it when it came to Chawton for our annual gathering two or three years ago. I also attended the occasion at the British Library when the desk was formally presented, and I remember the sense of faint discomfort at realizing that I was no longer permitted to touch what had once been a friendly and familiar object.

Yes, but now we ALL can see it at the British Library! Behind glass, but still.

Jane Austen could not herself have used the words ‘boring’ or ‘boredom’: they do not appear until near the middle of the 19th century. The verb ‘bore’ originates as aristocratic slang in the mid 18th century and it does appear in her books, but her usual word is the standard term of her time: ‘dullness’. It is worth lingering on that word for just a moment, as its scope is, I think, somewhat wider than that which we would naturally give to boredom today. The invention of the word ‘boredom’ may indeed be the effect of a change in which certain forms of human unhappiness are understood and interpreted; or perhaps the appearance of the word helped in part to cause that change.

The lecture is spread across four blog posts (there are links leading to each one). Check it out!

Lori Bajorek, the producer of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: A Musical Play, has announced that the Broadway-bound production will have a one-night-only “sneak peek” preview on October 21, 2008, at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, New York.

From the press release:

This special sneak peek of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, A Musical Play will feature a 16-piece orchestra made up of members of the prestigious Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra members, and Broadway cast members including Colin Donnell (Jersey Boys, Follies) as Mr. Darcy. As the Broadway production is slated for November of 2009, this Rochester-only showcase will not be the eventual full-scale production, but will feature costumes, lighting, simple sets and a professional New York City cast. A red carpet, “paparazzi” and other festivities will lend a Broadway feel to the one -night-only event.

Tickets for the preview are $35, $50, and $75 (the latter includes a post-performance reception with the performers). Tickets are available at 875 East Main Street in Rochester (Auditorium Theatre), by calling 585-232-1900, or online at www.tickemaster.com.

We attended a reading of this play last summer and loved it. We can’t wait to see it on Broadway (and maybe even in Rochester!). Do check out the website and all the information and snippets of music available there.

Author and JASNA member Joan Ellen Delman (who has been known to comment here at AustenBlog upon occasion) has written a quiz with quotations from Lord Byron and Jane Austen–see if you can tell which are which! The answers will be posted on the JASNA site later this summer.

We performed a routine upgrade on the blog software. Please let us know in the comments of this thread if anything doesn’t work. Unless comments don’t work, in which case e-mail us.

Random somewhat-related Austen links for the week:

• Tony Blair is Wickham? We always knew he couldn’t have those forearms for nothing.
• We love it when they use Jane Austen for sports metaphors.
• Laurel Ann at Austenprose asks: should Jane Austen fans help save Mark Twain’s house? (We say: let the Mark Twain Society of North America do it! Oh, wait…)
• Edward Austen, the author’s brother, founded it in 1894? Interesting, since he died in 1852.
• “Oh! it is a very nice word indeed! — It does for every thing.“

It’s an open thread: discuss the above or what’s happening in your patch of Janeiteville!

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Bookblogging. Lots of news and items of interest about Jane Austen’s novels, books inspired by her novels, and books related to her novels.

Claire Tomalin writes in the Guardian about the table upon which Jane Austen wrote and revised her books.

Not long before her death, Jane Austen described her writing as being done with a fine brush on a “little bit (not two inches wide) of ivory”. Her novels are not miniatures, but she did work on a surface not so much bigger than those two imagined inches of ivory.

Marshymallow tells us about the day she met Jane Austen.

Katherine Bucknell compares the romance of Jemima Khan and Hugh Grant to Mansfield Park. Guess who is Henry Crawford.

Say Fanny Price is Jemima Khan. Say Henry Crawford is Hugh Grant. She is a journalist, and something of an intellectual, despite her beauty and her beautiful clothes. Her columns in the press and her public protests in Parliament Square bespeak a character preoccupied with justice, goodness, adherence to the truth, to actual facts. Her public deportment, inviting as her face and figure may appear, is poised and self-contained. And her marriage was to a man of religion for whom she converted. She is a serious person.

Book Club Girl had a chat with Laurie Viera Rigler about her novel, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict.

The Louisville Courier-Journal has a review of Jane Austen for Dummies (which really isn’t for dummies).

We suspect some of our Gentle Readers might be interested in a bit of swag–not Jane Austen swag, but Georgette Heyer, which might be the next best thing. Word Candy is having a contest to give away one of the new Sourcebooks editions of Miss Heyer’s Regency-set novels to four lucky readers. Details are at the link, and let us know if you win one. We’re big Heyer fans here at AustenBlog World Headquarters. (Cotillion might be our favorite ever and makes us laugh until we cry.)

The Daily Mail has a review of The Seven Lives of John Murray by the late Humphrey Carpenter, about the seven generations of John Murrays who led the eponymous publishing house. The second John Murray published Emma, the second edition of MP, and NA/Persuasion posthumously.

Alert Janeite Paola sent us an e-mail to let us know that there is a possible French TV version of Pride and Prejudice being developed…

There’s a little news about French writer Véronique Olmi on this week Paris insert of Le Nouvel Observateur. She says: “This summer I’m staying in Paris to work on the adaptation of JA’s “Orgueil et Préjugés”, for France 2″.

Ooh la la!

Alert Janeite Lisa let us know that Theatre Memphis is staging Pride and Prejudice (the Jon Jory adaptation) from July 16-27, Thursday-Sunday with a matinee on Sunday. Tickets are $10-23 and available online. The site is Flash so we can’t give you a direct link, but you should be able to find what you need when you get to the site using the link above.

Here is the latest list of local Austen events. Perhaps one is in your town!

July 12-13, 2008, Louisville, Kentucky: Jane Austen Festival at Locust Grove, featuring Joan Klingel Ray as a speaker

A festival dedicated to Jane Austen! Visit our Regency Emporium with new and antiquarian books, jewelry, patterns, fabric, and everything else to make your own Regency dress. Join us for the Regency Style Show, and our Afternoon Tea. Featured speaker Joan Klingel Ray, past president of JASNA, and author of Jane Austen for Dummies will present, “Jane Austen for Smarties.”

July 16, 2008, Waltham, Massachusetts: A concert at Gore Place with the Boston Chamber Ensemble:

The Boston Chamber Ensemble offers a program of music from the world of Jane Austen arranged for flute and strings. The program coincides beautifully with the Jane Austen Tours of Gore Place July 18 and 20.

July 18 and 20, 2008, Waltham, Massachusetts: Jane Austen Tours of Gore Place.

Born in 1775, Austen ( Emma , Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility) lived her entire life in England until her death in 1817. Christopher and Rebecca Gore lived in England from 1796 to 1804. The grand mansion they built in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1806 features both French and English influence in the design and greatly resembles the manor houses described in Austens novels.

July 19, 2008, Colorado Springs, Colorado: Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen vs. the Filmmakers, one-day course at Colorado College

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (1813) has been the target of adaptations for almost two centuries, from the 19th century London stage to Hollywood and the BBC. Why? To define some of the perennial attraction of this novel, the class will examine the core characters, themes and vision of Austen’s great novel with the help of some historical background and a glance at some literary debates about Austen. Then we’ll look at the ways Austen’s themes have been understood, misunderstood, and recast by various films and TV miniseries. In particular we will look at examples from the wonderful 1940 film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier; the 1985 and the 1995 BBC versions, especially the latter with Colin FIrth and Jennifer Ehle; the 2005 film with Keira Knightley; and even Bridget Jones’s Diary. Students should rpurchase, read, and come with the Penguin edition, ed. V. Jones, of “Pride and Prejudice,” available at the Colorado College bookstore. This session will break for lunch and include an afternoon tea.

Thanks to Alert Janeite JaneGS for the link!

July 19, 2008, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: From Book to Screen: Literature and Film, one day course at UNC-Chapel Hill featuring speaker Inger Brodey

Our first speaker, Inger Brodey, will look at the works of Jane Austen, and the numerous films made based on Jane Austen’s novels. These Austen-based films have been set in places as remote from Austen’s English countryside as the Indian subcontinent and have included characters as foreign to Austen’s world as California teenagers, New York debutantes, and runaways in Florida. This talk will focus on specific examples of these films and address such questions as: What tends to be gained and lost in these transpositions of Austen’s novels across time and culture? What aspects of Austen’s novels remain untranslatable into film? What is the secret of Austen’s appeal to film audiences today?

The course also will cover westerns and other films. Thanks to Alert Baja Janeite (and her daughter) for the link!

We’re starting a new feature on AustenBlog this week: the Tuesday Open Thread. Each Tuesday, this post will include links to articles that didn’t quite make the cut for a full-blown web post during the previous week. We will occasionally break our usual “six degrees of Jane Austen” rule for something we find especially interesting or amusing or just gives us an opportunity to make a snarky remark we can’t resist (see the second link below). We currently envision presenting the links without much commentary, but don’t hold us to it. In comments, discuss the links or anything at all Jane-related or tangentially related.

• Mrs. Elton would approve of an article in the Telegraph about the revival of Bristol, complete with anti-Bath trash talk.
• “I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.” (Thanks to Alert Janeite Tina B. for the link!)
• P&P Remix: Darcy the Society Serialist! (Not the Horror!P&P Trailer we linked a while back) (Thanks to Alert Janeite Zoe for the link!)

Look for more changes on AustenBlog this summer!

Broadway Mouth reviews the original soundtrack of the 1959 Broadway musical adaptation of P&P called First Impressions.

In studying the OBCR, it’s not fully easy to say where the show might have gone wrong. The book is by the talented Abe Burrows, and, according to Filichia, is “a much wittier book than has been alleged, with incisive dialogue and characterizations,” though in Coming Up Roses: The Broadway Musical in the 1950s, historian Ethan Mordden asserts that Burrows attempted to re-write Jane Austen, which was not a wise choice (for the record, since the production rights are licensed by Samuel French, the libretto can easily be purchased online or, I’m sure, from the Drama Book Shop). Whichever the case may be, the cast recording fails to ignite the heart or romance of the story.

Despite these problems, the Broadway Mouth ends the review with:

Still, when another Austen show reaches Broadway, I want the CD.

We can’t help you out with the CD, but there are a few songs available on the Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice MySpace page…and a little bird has told us that the Bennets might be treading the boards as soon as next year! (And the writers, Lindsay Warren Baker and Amanda Jacobs, will be at the JASNA AGM in Chicago this October, where they will talk about the process of putting the play together, perhaps with some scenes and songs included.)

Vermont Public Radio interviewed Kelly McDonald & Deb Barnum, co-regional coordinators of JASNA’s Vermont Region. You can listen to a recording of the interview online or download it as a podcast.

Delta College in Michigan will be holding auditions for a stage production of Pride and Prejudice in September. It’s unclear which adaptation will be used or when the play will take place, but we’ll let everyone know if we hear anything! And if you get in the cast, do let us know!

JASNA Wisconsin Region R.C. Elizabeth Philosophos Cooper has followed up her excellent article on Brook Edward Bridges, portrayed by Hugh Bonneville in Miss Austen Regrets, with a piece on Charles Haden, played by the eminently woof-worthy Jack Huston. As in the first essay, Ms. Cooper busts a few myths while showing an appreciation for the film.

Austen’s letters to her sister, Cassandra, written from London in the autumn of 1815 include many references to Haden but provide no support for the screenplay’s invention of a romantic triangle. On the contrary, they suggest that Austen enjoyed both Haden and his flirtation with Fanny.

There also is some information on the real Mr. Haden’s distinguished medical career. We encourage our Gentle Readers most strongly to check it out!