Lost in Austen, the new post modern interpretation of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice started on ITV1 last night. Any good? Well, I've mixed feelings. I had already read a review earlier in the week saying the first half is a little, erm, odd and you have to suspend you belief and bear with it. So I was prepared when Amanda Price, a modern woman living in Hammersmith, finds Elizabeth Bennet in her bathroom, apparently after coming through a door at the end of the bath.
Amanda Price, played by Jemima Rooper (the actress who played Bobbie in the recent adaptation of The Railway Children), shares a flat in London, works in a bank and has a throughly (un)charming boyfriend, who drunkenly proposes to her. Her mother, smoking a fag, tells her she should accept the proposal, as, after all, Amanda's standards wouldn't help her with her coat when she's seventy.
So Amanda immerses herself into the romance that is Pride & Prejudice. She reads it constantly, knows the story intimately. Or so she thinks. She doesn't realise how intimate she is going to find it. So, as I've said, she finds Elizabeth in her bathroom, then she disappears, only to reappear again the following night. Amanda, initially thinking she was having a breakdown, then starts to believe, walks through the door into the Bennet's attic, and finds the door slammed behind her.
She goes downstairs, meets the family, gains Bingley's affections, then realises the "book" is now not going to plan. Bingley should be drawn to Jane, not her. She has to do something about it (so why she then goes on to snog Bingley, I've no idea.)
There are some comic moments. Hugh Bonneville plays the role of Mr Bennet very well. Amanda stares at one of the Bennet sisters, convinced for a moment that she can see a contact lense and she refers to the Darcy in this adaptation as "no Colin Firth" (and she's right). Then there is the realisation that she has to clean her teeth with birch twigs and chalk. But in terms of the differences between the cultures there could have been more. I felt something was missing.
I would also liked to have seen how Elizabeth was getting on in modern day London. I couldn't help but think that that might have been a little more exciting.
Missed the first episode? You can catch up here.
Lost in Austen, Wednesdays ITV1 at 9pm.
