Emma Thompson, Tamsin Greig, Kate Atkinson, Adjoa Andoh, Anna Maxwell-Martin and a host of well-known Jane Austen fans feature in the Jane Austen collection, available on BBC Sounds from 6th December, bringing together highlights of the BBC’s Austen programming – including all six of Austen’s major novels.
This December, BBC Radio 4 and 4Extra will mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth with a season of programming celebrating the life, legacy, and literary brilliance of one of Britain’s most beloved authors – including a special day of programming on Radio 4 on the 16th December, celebrating Austen’s birthday.
A complete collection of Austen’s six major novels, adapted for audio drama – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey – will be broadcast across Radio 4 and 4Extra, and brought together as part of a dedicated Jane Austen collection on BBC Sounds, launched on 6th December. The collection also features Austen’s juvenilia and a rich array of factual programming exploring her enduring cultural impact.
Two newly commissioned dramas – Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility – bookend the season on Radio 4, with Tamsin Greig narrating as Jane Austen herself. These fresh adaptations, dramatised by Rachel Joyce and Claudine Toutoungi, offer a new take on Austen’s themes of love, heartbreak, and sisterhood.
Austen fans can also look forward to a ten-part factual series, When I Met Jane Austen, presented by Austen biographer Dr Paula Byrne, who is joined by a stellar line-up of guests including David Baddiel, Katherine Rundell, Val McDermid, Kate Atkinson, Andrew Davies, Amy Heckerling, Gurinder Chadha, Marlon James, Colm Tóibín and Philippa Perry. Each episode explores how Austen’s work has shaped and inspired their lives and creative journeys.
There will also be a special edition of Bookclub, featuring Emma Thompson, who reflects on her adaptation of Sense and Sensibility and discusses why Austen’s writing continues to resonate with readers and audiences today.
Plus, there will be a chance to hear the Radio 4 continuity announcers like you’ve never heard them before, as they join in the celebrations marking Jane Austen’s birthday on 16th December.
Radio 4Extra will pay tribute to Austen by rebroadcasting highlights of Radio 4 programming from the past forty years.
There is also a selection of Jane Austen-themed TV programmes available on BBC iPlayer, including adaptations of her novels and Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius, a 3-part documentary exploring the surprising life and lasting impact of the groundbreaking author with the help of experts, contemporary novelists, and actors who have portrayed Austen’s characters. Plus, Bafta and Olivier Award-winning actor Monica Dolan will give a captivating reading of Jane Austen’s much loved and last completed novel, Persuasion, in The Read, broadcast in December on BBC Four and iPlayer. All episodes of Miss Austen are available now on BBC iPlayer and a new ten-part drama The Other Bennet Sister based on the hit novel of the same name by Janice Hadlow has been announced.
Matthew Dodd, Commissioning Editor for Arts, BBC Radio 4, says: “Jane Austen’s work continues to delight audiences 250 years after she was born. We’re thrilled to bring together such a rich and varied collection across Radio 4 and 4Extra, and to showcase the many ways Austen’s voice still resonates today.”
Alison Hindell, Commissioning Editor for Drama and Fiction, BBC Radio 4, says: “Jane Austen’s novels are timeless, and this anniversary gave us the perfect opportunity to revisit them with fresh eyes. It’s a joy to celebrate Austen’s enduring, global power as a storyteller.”
Full programme information for Jane Austen season:
Listen now on BBC Sounds
The BBC Sounds collection will include the following programmes which have already been broadcast across the anniversary year.
Drama on 4: Northanger Abbey, part one
Dramatised by Clara Glynn. Austen’s early novel is a coming-of-age narrative and a satire on the 1790s vogue for the sensationalist Gothic novel.
Seventeen year old Catherine Morland is invited to Bath by a rich neighbour. Entering the fashionable society of the city, Catherine finds high drama and peril in every encounter and in every event – often with comic results. And then she receives an extraordinary, and thrilling, invitation.
Catherine Morland ….. Madeleine Gray
Henry Tilney ….. Will Howard
Isabella Thorpe ….. Cecilia Appiah
Mrs Allen ….. Ella Smith
General Tilney ….. John Heffernan
Eleanor Tilney ….. Scarlett Courtney
Mrs Morland/Mrs Thorpe ….. Jasmine Hyde
John Thorpe ….. Josh Bryant-Jones
James Morland/Captain Tilney ….. Django Bevan
Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane
Sound by Keith Graham and Sam Dickinson
Production Coordinator – Bethany Woodhead
Opening Lines: Northanger Abbey, part one
Northanger Abbey was Jane Austen’s first book, although it wasn’t published until after her death. It tells the story of Catherine Morland, an impressionable young woman who is introduced to fashionable society when she’s taken by a wealthy neighbour to Bath. There, Catherine’s imagination catches fire when she’s initiated into the thrills of Gothic fiction by new friend, Isabella Thorpe – a pretty, charming but devious gold digger.
Another great reader of Gothic novels is ‘not quite handsome but very near it’ Henry Tilney, whom Catherine finds enchanting. When Henry invites Catherine to stay at Northanger Abbey, the home of his father, General Tilney, she imagines secret passages, haunted catacombs and an evil secret. Catherine does indeed find something wicked at the Abbey but not in the way she expects.
In this first of two episodes John Yorke explores the dual nature of the book – part satire on Gothic fiction and part celebration of the novel form.
Reader: Esme Scarborough
Production Hub Coordinators: Nina Semple and Dawn Williams
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Iain Hunter
Producer: Kate McAll
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
Drama on 4: The Castle of Otranto
A new adaptation of Horace Walpole’s gothic novel, widely recognised as being the godfather of modern horror.
The adaptation by Katherine Tozer with specially composed music by John Chambers embraces the lurid nature of the original text, evoking a fever dream reality designed to conjure an experience that’s both eerie and disturbing.
Set in Medieval Italy, Manfred is the despotic ruler of Otranto. Defying the curse that foretells his downfall he prepares to use whatever means necessary to hold onto power.
Manfred ….. Sandy Grierson
Hippolyta ….. Emily Bruni
Mathilda ….. Kitty Archer
Isabella ….. Cecilia Appiah
Bianca ….. Bethany Muir
Theodore ….. Jake Kenny-Bryne
Father Jerome ….. Arthur Hughes
Frederic ….. Justin Salinger
Directed by Tracey Neale
Produced by Gemma Jenkins
Production Co-ordinator: Maggie Olgiati
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.
Opening Lines: The Castle of Otranto
When Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto in 1764, novels as a form were still in their infancy. Many tended to be long-winded works, instructing readers on how to live a moral life.
With this short and fast-paced rollercoaster of a book, Walpole blew that idea out of the water, introducing his audience to a completely new kind of fiction, featuring supernatural happenings, suspense, and a young woman fleeing an evil villain down a dark corridor with a candle that blows out at the vital moment – all the elements of what we now call Gothic fiction.
Prompting both a moral panic and a rush on sales, The Castle of Otranto would prove inspirational to many future writers, including Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, and Jane Austen, who would both parody and celebrate the Gothic in her novel Northanger Abbey.
Presented by John Yorke.
Contributor: Emma Clery, Professor of English Literature at the Uppsala University, Sweden. Editor of The Castle of Otranto (1996), and author of The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762 -1800
Reader: Paul Dodgson
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Iain Hunter
Producer: Kate McAll
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
You’re Dead to Me: Jane Austen
Greg Jenner is joined in Regency England by historian Dr Lucy Worsley and actor Sally Phillips to learn all about the life and works of literary legend Jane Austen.
This episode explores her early life as the daughter of a rural clergyman, takes a peek inside the books a teenage Jane was reading, and delves into her romantic and familial relationships to see what shaped Austen into the formidable literary talent she was. It also asks a key question: was Jane Austen, who wrote such wonderful women characters, a feminist?
Coming soon: Persuasion drops 6 December as part of the Jane Austen collection on BBC Sounds
Jane Austen’s last-completed novel is a moving, witty story of missed opportunities and second chances, recorded in full as a brand-new audiobook, read by Jasmine Hyde.
Anne Elliot last saw Frederick Wentworth eight years ago, when she broke off their engagement. All because her family had persuaded her that he wasn’t good enough for her.
Now he’s a celebrated naval captain: rich, successful, a catch. Anne – twenty-seven, not married, with her family now in debt – suddenly finds their paths crossing again.
Has too much time passed, or can their feelings be rekindled?
Producer – Fay Lomas
Sound engineer – Rhys Morris
Made by BBC Audio, Wales for BBC Radio 4.
Programming on BBC Radio 4
Listen to Jane Austen on BBC Sounds
Opening Lines: Northanger Abbey, part two
Sunday 9 November, 2.45pm – 3pm
Jane Austen’s novel, Northanger Abbey, was the first full book she wrote. She was in her early twenties at the time and it was accepted by a publisher but the novel wasn’t published in her lifetime. In this second episode, John Yorke looks at the story behind the genesis of Northanger Abbey – how a young woman with only three years of formal education came to write such an accomplished work, what prompted her to write a satire of Gothic fiction, and why the book is also a hymn of praise to the novel form itself.
Jane may not have spent much time in school but her voracious love of reading, her prodigious memory and understanding of other writers’ techniques meant that she was entertaining the family with her own stories and plays from an early age. After leaving school at 11, her real education began – self-education. With the encouragement of her father, the availability of subscription libraries which made reading possible for all purses, and a lot of writing practice, she would develop into one of Britain’s finest writers.
Sadly, her story is also one of disappointment and neglect. Despite the publisher’s promise, Jane’s novel, finished when she was 24, would have to languish for nearly 20 years before it finally saw the light of day, six months after her death.
Drama on 4: Northanger Abbey, part two
Sunday 9 November, 3pm – 4pm
Dramatised by Clara Glynn. Having spent some weeks in Bath, Catherine has received an invitation from the Tilneys to stay at their home, Northanger Abbey. In the halls and corridors of this ancient building and fuelled by her love of the Gothic novel, Catherine’s imagination runs riot.
Catherine Morland ….. Madeleine Gray
Henry Tilney ….. Will Howard
Eleanor Tilney ….. Scarlett Courtney General Tilney ….. John Heffernan
Isabella Thorpe ….. Cecilia Appiah Mrs Morland ….. Jasmine Hyde
James Morland/Captain Tilney ….. Django Bevan
Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane
Sound by Keith Graham and Sam Dickinson
Production Coordinator – Bethany Woodhead
Opening Lines: Pride and Prejudice, part one
Saturday 13 December 3pm – 4.15pm
Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ has not only captured the hearts of generations of readers, it also helped change the way that novels are written. This most beloved tale of Regency romance, featuring the brilliantly quick-witted Elizabeth Bennett and the haughty figure of Fitzwilliam Darcy, allows us into its characters’ heads and hearts in newly sophisticated ways that set the template for so much of the fiction that followed. In this, the first of two parts focusing on Austen’s most popular novel, John Yorke examines how a book she described as ‘too light, and bright, and sparkling’ retains a special place and a special importance in the history of English literature.
The programme features leading Austen expert John Mullen, professor of English Literature at UCL, and Dr. Lucy Powell, lecturer in English at the University of Oxford.
Presented by John Yorke.
Contributor: John Mullen, professor of English Literature at UCL
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
Producer: Geoff Bird
Reader: Rhiannon Neads
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Pier production for BBC Radio
Drama on 4: Pride and Prejudice, episode one
Saturday 13 December 3.15pm – 4.15pm
Radio 4 celebrates 250 years of Jane Austen with fresh, funny, and female-focused adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Expect heartbreak, love, hilarity, and the enduring power of sisterhood.
Both dramas are narrated by Tamsin Grieg as Austen herself. Pride and Prejudice is the iconic love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, and a delightful portrayal of a family. It perfectly conjures up the period, and the pressure on women to find husbands. It’s a tapestry of unforgettable characters and wonderfully funny.
Pride and Prejudice stars Tamsin Grieg (Friday Night Dinner, Green Wing and Episodes) as narrator Jane Austen; Isabella Laughland (The Road Trip) as Elizabeth Bennet; Luke Thompson (Bridgerton and A Little Life); Miles Jupp (Rev, The Durrells) as Mr Bennet; Rosie Cavaliero as Mrs Bennet (Power of Parker); Lucy Doyle as Jane (The Mousetrap) Louis Landau as Mr Bingley (Butterfly, Rivals); Toby Regbo as Mr Wickham (Outrageous); Adjoa Andoh as Lady Catherine (Bridgerton); Kitty O’Sullivan as Lydia (Our Man in Havana); and Gaia Wise as Kitty (Dead of Winter.)
And with:
Imogen Front as Mary and Georgiana,
Josh Bryant Jones as Mr Collins,
Sasha McCabe as Charlotte Lucas,
Catherine Bailey as Caroline Bingley,
Jasmine Hyde as Mrs Gardiner,
Clive Hayward as Mr Gardiner,
And Sarah Thom as Mrs Reynolds.
Dramatised by Rachel JoyceDirected by Tracey Neale
Sound by Andrew Garratt and Sam Dickinson
Production Co-Ordinator, Luke MacGregor
A BBC Studios Production.
Opening Lines: Pride and Prejudice, part two
Sunday 14 December 2.45pm – 3pm
The opening lines of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ are not only among the most famous in all of literature, they also place marriage front and centre as the key theme within the novel. “It is a truth universally acknowledged,” Austen writes, “that any man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” So many of the characters and their actions are driven by the search for a good marriage – but their motivations and aspirations are both richly varied and illuminating of Regency society at a time when women could find security and status primarily at the altar. John Yorke asks whether Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, two of the most illustrious and quick-witted partners in literary history, can find a love that transcends the strictures of the time.
The programme features Dr Lucy Powell, lecturer in English at the University of Oxford, and Professor John Mullan from University College London.
Drama on 4: Pride and Prejudice, part two
Sunday 14 December 3pm – 4pm
Rachel Joyce’s fresh, funny and heartfelt adaptation of Pride and Prejudice continues – a celebration of love, wit and the enduring power of sisterhood.
When I Met Jane Austen
Monday 15 – Friday 19 December 11.45am – 12pm, 1.45pm – 2pm
Available as a boxset on BBC Sounds from 6 December
Austen biographer and writer Dr Paula Byrne is joined by prominent thinkers, writers, directors who tell her about their encounters with the famous author. Each of her guests has been shaped, changed, and inspired by Jane Austen. Paula has been thinking and writing about Austen for the best part of thirty years and her guests’ experiences will inspire her own reflections, drawn from the places that held special meaning for Austen.
Presenter: Dr Paula Byrne
Reader: Gemma Whelan
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Woman’s Hour
Tuesday 16 December 10am – 11am
To mark Jane Austen’s birthday, Woman’s Hour will be looking at why Austen’s wise and witty writing remains so relatable for women today. Nuala McGovern hears why the topics Austen addresses, and her sharp observations on women’s lives and society, still resonate.
Screenshot: Jane Austen on Film
Tuesday 16 December 11am – 11.45am
Presented by Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode. Screenshot delves into some of the many films and TV programmes that have been adapted from or inspired by Jane Austen’s novels and stories, including the iconic BBC TV adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion in the 90s through to Bridget Jones and Clueless.
Interviewees include:
• Celine Song – acclaimed director of Past Lives (2023) Song has acknowledged Jane Austen to be a favourite author and her latest film the rom com ‘Materialists’ from earlier this year is heavily influenced by Austen’s style and characterisation.
• Lillian Crawford – the critic and film journalist will review the history of Austen in films and TV – there have been many hundreds of adaptations – Crawford will pick out the best and some of the weirdest like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from 2016.
• Amy Heckerling – director of Clueless – one of the funniest and most successful Austen inspired movies from 1995. The takes the plot of Emma and transposes it to an American High school with hilarious results.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street Production for BBC Radio 4.
When I Met Jane Austen
Tuesday 16 December 11.45am – 12pm
Episode 3: Val McDermid.
When I Met Jane Austen
Tuesday 16 December 1.45pm – 2pm
Episode 4: Kate Atkinson
Drama on 4: Jane and Tom: The Real Pride and Prejudice
Tuesday 16 December 2.15pm – 3pm
Elizabeth Lewis’s drama from 2009, based on letters from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, tells of the author’s love for Tom Lefroy. Stars Andrew Scott, Jasmine Hyde and Penny Downie.
Bookclub
Tuesday 16 December 4pm – 4.30pm
In this special edition of Bookclub, presenter James Naughtie is joined by the actor and screenwriter Emma Thompson who answers readers’ questions about Austen’s first novel, Sense and Sensibility. Thompson adapted the book for the screen in 1995, and had a starring role as Elinor Dashwood, the character with the most sense, when compared to her sister Marianne, played by Kate Winslet. The film won Emma Thompson an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the only person in history to win Academy Awards for both acting and writing. During this recording in Broadcasting House, London, the actress talks about the narrative choices she had to make while turning the book into a film, what she loves about the story, Austen’s acute observations, and why the novel is still relevant today. When Sense and Sensibility was first published back in 1811 it was done so anonymously. On its title page it simply stated that it was a story written ‘By A Lady’.
Front Row
Tuesday 16 December 7.15am – 10am
Front Row explores Austen’s brilliance as a writer — her sharp wit, elegant prose, gripping storylines and the power of her social commentary. Samira Ahmed is joined by a panel of acclaimed authors and leading Austen scholars to discuss her literary craft, her influence on subsequent writers in the 19th Century, and why her work still resonates with readers today.
Opening Lines: Sense and Sensibility, episode one
Saturday 20 December 3pm – 3.15pm
No ‘picnics and tea parties’ here, just the ‘chink of cash in every paragraph’. Sense and Sensibility is sharply funny and shot through with darkness, exposing social cruelty within the confines of rigid 18th society.
John Yorke considers Jane Austen’s obsession with money in the novel, the genius of its dialogue, and Austen’s most brilliant innovation: a way of perceiving the character’s internal world through the narrative voice. He’ll discover why Jane Austen’s work is so reinvent-able for every age, culture and platform, and particularly for now.
Including guests Professor John Mullan, writer Claudine Toutoungi, and reader Rhiannon Neads.
Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery.
Drama on 4: Sense and Sensibility, episode one
Saturday 20 December 3.15pm – 4.15pm
Sense and Sensibility is a tale of two sisters with wildly different hearts: one ruled by reason, the other by passion. But when love, loss, and scandal strike, Elinor and Marianne will learn that heartbreak is best faced together.
Sense and Sensibility stars Tamsin Greig (Friday Night Dinner, Green Wing) as narrator Jane Austen; Madeleine Mantock as Elinor (Charmed, The Long Song); Rose Basista (Trigger Point) as Marianne, Ben Hardy (Bohemian Rhapsody) as John Willoughby; Enyi Okoronkwo (Renegade Nell) as Edward Ferrars; Richard Goulding (The Windsors, Wicked Little Letters) as Colonel Brandon; Jasmine Hyde as Mrs Dashwood, Ava Talbot as Margaret Dashwood; Carolyn Pickles as Mrs Jennings; Clive Hayward as Sir John; Bethan Rose Young as Lucy Steele; Django Bevan as John Dashwood; Sasha McCabe as Fanny Dashwood.
Dramatised by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Anne Isger
Sound by Andy Garratt, Neva Missirian and Sam Dickinson
Production co-ordination by Kate Gray
A BBC Studios Production
Opening Lines: Sense and Sensibility, part two
Sunday 21 December 2.45pm – 3pm
John Yorke continues his exploration of Austen’s obsession with money in the novel, the genius of its dialogue, and Austen’s most brilliant innovation: a way of perceiving the character’s internal world through the narrative voice. He’ll discover why Jane Austen’s work is so reinvent-able for every age, culture and platform, and particularly for now.
Drama on 4: Sense and Sensibility, part two
Sunday 21 December 3pm – 4pm
Marianne and Elinor are taking a trip to London. Marianne is desperate to see Willoughby after his abrupt departure from Barton. Elinor has discovered the devastating news of Edward’s engagement to Lucy Steele but is determined to keep the secret.
Bookclub (repeat)
Sunday 21 December 4pm – 4.30pm
Letters to Alice (OMNIBUS)
Saturday 6 December 12.30pm – 1.40pm
New to 4 Extra. Fay Weldon reads her own letters to a young student relative, making a strong and witty case for the enduring value of the classics of English literature.
Omnibus of five parts abridged by Shelley Bovey
Producer: Alec Reid
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.
Lady Susan (1-10/10)
Monday 8 December – Friday 19 December 8.30am – 8.45am
New to 4 Extra. In Jane Austen’s little known, very early work (not published until 1871), Harriet Walter stars as Lady Susan, Maggie Steed as Mrs Johnson and Imelda Staunton as Mrs Vernon.
Lady Susan Vernon is a beautiful society widow but both manipulative and scheming. She is seeking a husband for herself and her shy and awkward daughter, while engaged in an affair with a married man.
Who will win the heart of the rich and handsome Reginald De Courcy? And will the truth about Lady Susan ever come out? These are the questions a teenaged Jane Austen posed in this early epistolary novella, published long after her death – the first of her many wise and witty studies of love and marriage, and the games people play.
In episode one, when Lady Susan decides to visit her brother-in-law, will she be a welcome guest? Her dear friend Alicia Johnson narrates her story.
With Jill Balcon and Geoffrey Whitehead.
Adapted by Lavinia Murray
Music by Julie Cooper
Directed by Jocelyn Boxall
Produced by Jeremy Mortimer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
Remembering Jane Austen (1-4/4)
Monday 8 December – Thursday 11 December 10.30am – 10.50am
New to 4 Extra. “A gentleman visiting Winchester Cathedral desired to be shown Miss Austen’s grave. The verger, as he pointed it out, asked, ‘Pray, sir, can you tell me whether there was anything particular about that lady; so many people want to know where she is buried”.
James Edward Austen-Leigh was Jane Austen ‘s nephew. The youngest mourner at her funeral in 1817, he was later to publish a memoir of his aunt. Published in 1869, it is the only account we have written by someone who actually knew her.
Derek Parker presents four programmes based on the book.
With Paul Rogers as James Austen-Leigh and Joanna David as Jane Austen.
Producer: John Knight
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
Emma (1-2/2)
Monday 8 December – Tuesday 9 December 3pm – 4pm
Eve Best stars as Emma and Robert Bathurst as Mr Knightley in Jane Austen’s sparkling comedy of love and marriage first published in 1815.
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever and rich, a young woman so blessed by life that she declares she will never marry. However, she is determined to find the right match for her new friend Harriet Smith.
With Patience Tomlinson, Andrew Wincott and Tom Hollander.
Dramatised in two parts by April de Angelis.
Music by Martin Souter and Sarah Stowe
Directed by Jonquil Panting
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2000.
Persuasion (1-3/3)
Wednesday 10 December – Friday 12 December 3pm – 4pm
Juliet Stevenson stars as the quiet and perceptive Anne Elliot and Sorcha Cusack is Jane Austen in Jane Austen’s story of love, regret and social status.
It’s 1814 in the village of Uppercross in Somersetshire. Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall has long since given up any hope of his daughter making a favourable marriage.
Eight years ago, young Anne rejected a proposal from Frederick Wentworth, a handsome but poor naval officer. Now her former love has returned. Anne was persuaded to give him up – and he’s not forgiven her.
First published in 1817, Jane Austen’s novel is dramatised in three parts by Michelene Wandor.
With Tim Brierley, Roger Hume and Claire Faulconbridge.
Square piano (William Rolfe and Sons c 1810) played by Kenneth Mobbs
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Vanessa Whitburn.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1986
No Ice in Weymouth: Episode 1: Pride, Prejudice and Shopping (1-5/5)
Monday 8 December – Friday 12 December 8.45am – 9am
New to 4 Extra. Starring Susannah Harker in a portrait of the family, social and professional world of Jane Austen, as seen through her letters and novels.
Jane discusses the art of buying gloves and speculates on the quality of food markets in Sweden. Meanwhile, Pride and Prejudice is about to be published and she writes to her sister Cassandra with the news.
With Oona Beeson, David Holt and Annabelle Dowler.
Devised in five parts by Vanessa Rosenthal.
Director Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
Juvenile Jane
Friday 12 December 10.30am – 11am
Jane Austen’s surprisingly neglected but delightfully precocious and revealing early works celebrated by Austen expert Janet Todd with the help of the writer and illustrator Posy Simmonds and the actor Anna Maxwell Martin.
Considering how frequently Jane Austen’s six great novels are adapted for film, radio and television, it is perhaps surprising that the three small exercise books containing twenty two little stories and plays written during her teen years have not received more notice. Some of these stories – with titles such as “The Adventures of Mr Harley”, “The Generous Curate” and “The Beautiful Cassandra” – are only a few lines long but others run to many pages and provide both entertainment and surprising insights into the development of the mature writer.
Austen expert Janet Todd leafs through two of the precious volumes which are held at the British Library in London and discusses their wonderfully uninhibited style and content with the writer and illustrator Posy Simmonds who has long been a fan of Austen and fascinated by juvenilia in general. It is well documented that, during her lifetime, the adult Jane Austen used to read from these books to her close family. For this programme, the actor Anna Maxwell Martin reads extensive extracts from three stories – “Frederick and Elfrida”, “Henry and Eliza” and “love and Freindship” (sic) to reanimate them for a contemporary radio audience.
Producer Beaty Rubens
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
Mansfield Park (1/2)
Saturday 13 December 11.00am – 12.15pm
Episode 2 is broadcast on Sunday 20 December at 6am, 11am & 5pm
A rare chance to re-listen. Felicity Jones stars as Fanny, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Edmund and David Tennant as Sir Thomas Bertram.
In Jane Austen’s classic tale, first published in 1814, unlikely heroine Fanny Price is plucked from her impoverished family and brought up by her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park.
With Tim Pigott-Smith, Amanda Root and Julia McKenzie.
Produced by Sally Avens
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
Love and Freindship (sic) (1/1)
Tuesday 16 December 3pm – 3.45pm
New to 4 Extra. Victoria Hamilton stars as Laura and David Tennant as Edward in Jane Austen’s unconstrained comedy of youthful rebellion, love at first sight, door-slamming, theft, elopement and death, written when the novelist was only 14.
Two young heroines substitute the quivering emotions of sensibility for common sense in this exuberant parody of the sentimental and romantic novels of the day. It’s truly Jane Austen as you’ve never heard her before.
With Janet Jefferies and David Horovitch
Dramatised by Robin Brooks
Produced by Fiona McAlpine
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.
Programming on BBC Radio 3
The Essay: Accompanying Austen
Monday 15 – Friday 19 December, 9.45am – 10am
250 years since the birth of Jane Austen, film critic Antonia Quirke meets five modern composers who’ve scored original music for Austen adaptations or Austen-influenced films. The composers discuss the musical choices when underscoring key scenes and moments, as well as the music that Austen herself enjoyed. The series includes discussions with Rachel Portman (Emma), Adrian Johnston (Becoming Jane), Jeremy Sams (Persuasion), Ruth Barrett (Sanditon) and Fernando Velázquez (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).
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