A mysterious door leads to a world of troubles for the characters of Pride and Prejudice — and pretty soon the whole novel’s plotlines begin to unravel as the characters become aware of their own destinies…
But this is not Lost in Austen, the Jemima Rooper-starring drama series which finished on Wednesday on ITV1. Instead, this is BBC Radio 4, and the Afternoon Play. Thursday’s production was Unseen Austen by Judith French, which sees Lydia and Kitty Bennet discover the manuscript of their own lives.
But the big question is — is it any good?
There are manifold problems with Unseen Austen, each of which at least highlights how successful the ITV1 drama was in flirting with post-modernism without ever sacrificing dramatic interest.
Here, Lydia Bennet (Jodie Whittaker) takes control, and attempts to rewrite Pride and Prejudice more to her own tastes — and naturally does it badly. Unfortunately, there is nothing worse than listening to a pastiche of a deliberately bad novel, with characters that are wilfully one-dimensional. As the characters jump out of their own novel and attempt to live in a variety of other books, it took every effort to continue listening. Thankfully, the final quarter hour of the play gets back on track, as Austen regains control of the dialogue, and Darcy is reunited with Elizabeth.
Where Lost in Austen succeeded was the impression that every character was behaving in a manner consistent with their character, even if that character was slightly different to conventionally received wisdom. Here, though, everything feels forced and unnatural.
Unseen Austen is certainly closer in spirit to Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels than Lost in Austen was — but it lacks the sophistication and humour of Fforde’s work.
Turn off the TV is an occasional series exploring the world of radio.
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