TV Review: Miss Austen Regrets

Jane Austen's Final Years

Nov 8, 2009

Jane Austen's private life is revealed in this BBC feature-length dramatisation when her niece Fanny sought advice on love and marriage.

Miss Austen Regrets will screen on ABC1 on Sunday, 15 November 2009, at 8.30pm.

Austen’s novels about love and marriage are now firmly established as literary classics, with numerous film and TV adaptations.

Fanny’s Favourite Aunt

Jane [Olivia Williams] is a successful writer with Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park published, with Emma nearing completion. (Even the Prince Regent—later George IV—is a fan.) She is nearly forty, still happily unmarried, but Jane displays all the assured wit and charm of her novel’s heroines. She is the favourite aunt of Fanny Knight [Imogen Poots], a young pretty girl, seeking wisdom and knowledge for a happy marriage. Fanny is desperate to fall in love rather than marry for wealth.

Yet money is an ongoing concern for the Austens. Her brother Edward Austen-Knight [Pip Torrens] is not happy with Jane’s preoccupation earning money writing books, and worries about the family’s reputation. Jane reveals little to Fanny but she reflects on her own choice.

She accepted wealthy young neighbour Harris Bigg’s proposal with much rejoicing by family members, but changed her mind the following day.

Rev Brook Bridges [Hugh Bonneville] proved ideal, but he left his declarations too late.

The handsome young doctor, Mr Charles Haden [Jack Huston] ignites Jane’s passions but she realizes she is too old to be eligible.

Her brother Henry [Adrian Edmondson] faces financial ruin when his bank failed. Old resentments towards Jane refusing Bigg’s proposal resurface, as life would be very different has she accepted.

Jane Austen’s World

Miss Austen Regrets unravels this elusive woman’s secrets, based on actual letters and diaries. It brilliantly recaptures life during Regency England, including attitudes towards wealth and earning a living, and Jane’s close relationship with her sister and confidante Cassandra [Greta Scacchi].

Mrs Austen [Phyllida Law] is a contrast as Jane and Cassandra’s critical mother. A 19th Century wife and mother would find difficulty in finding time to write one great novel, let alone six!

Writer Gwyneth Hughes says the drama provides insight into Austen’s own romantic life. She examines why, despite setting the standard for romantic fiction, Jane died never married nor ever meeting her own Mr Darcy.

Miss Austen Regrets is a BBC Films and WGBH Boston co-production produced by Annie Pivcevic and Jamie Laurenson, and directed by Jeremy Lovering.

The copyright of the article TV Review: Miss Austen Regrets in Biopic Dramas is owned by Carolyn M Cash. Permission to republish TV Review: Miss Austen Regrets in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.