The Other Bennet Sister

For this very special episode, we're joined by actress Susannah Harker, who played Jane Bennet in the classic 1995 BBC adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice' as well as author and Austen expert Gabrielle Malcolm. We discuss their thoughts on "The Other Bennet Sister," a new BBC series (available on Britbox in the U.S.) based on Janice Hadlow's novel of the same name. The series continues 'Pride and Prejudice' through the perspective of perhaps the most overlooked Bennet sister, Mary. We talk about bringing marginalized characters to the forefront, how 'The Other Bennet Sister' pays tribute to other P&P adaptations, and why Austen's masterpiece continues to inspire great art. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Period. I'm host Allison Thhoet de Castillo, and in each episode, we'll see how an adaptation holds up against the original work, what was preserved, what was changed, and what those choices reveal about the time then and the time now. Today I'm really excited to introduce our guests, Susanna Harker and Gabrielle Malcolm. Susanna is a BAFT-nominated actor who's played many roles on the stage and on screen, including Jane Bennett in the 1995 BBC miniseries of Pride and Prejudice. She is currently working on a new film project called Jane Bennett's Second Spring. And Gabrielle is an Austin expert and writer with Jane Austen Regency Magazine and author of Fan Phenomena, Jane Austen and There's Something About Darcy. She also produces Austin themed literary tours in the UK. Welcome to Period, Susanna and Gabrielle. Hello. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Hello. So happy to have you both here. We have a very special episode today on the new BBC series, The Other Bennett Sister, about the often overlooked middle sister Mary Bennett from Pride and Prejudice. The 10-part series based on the 2020 book by Janice Hadlow is available on BBC One in the UK and Britbox in the US. So I want to start. How did you both come across Jane Austen? Let's start with you, Susanna. I heard that maybe Northanger Abbey was your first delve into Jane Austen.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yes, yes. I'm afraid Northanger Abbey was, much as I appreciate it now in later life. When I was 14 and at my convent boarding school, it was a bit of a trial because, you know, we were distracted with all sorts of other things. It wasn't the right age. I think it's actually quite a sophisticated book, you know, gothic novel. And I think once you have the benefit of age and a little bit more sophistication, perhaps, in one's own life, you're able to view it because she was so clever, of course, Jane. And uh I certainly wasn't wasn't as clever at the age of 14. So I didn't appreciate it. I didn't appreciate in in the its true splendour until much later on. So I wasn't I wasn't a natural, you know, Austen uh convert. Um and so I I pretty much neglected it and went headlong into Dickens and and the Bronte's and all of that, um and rather dramatic in my sort of mid, you know, in my into my teen years. But um then uh it was it wasn't until later on um when I was actually offered the part of Jane Bennett that I that I read Pride and Prejudice. I do remember my grandmother reading Pride and Prejudice and um walking across the living room on the way to her bedroom talking about how she would go back to this book, clutching a copy of it, uh, in order to give her comfort. Uh so that was my first I suppose that's the first time I noticed noticed it properly. Um and then um yes, I came to it, I read it when I I read the script and then I read the book. Um so I I did it that way round uh and then of course was completely smitten and fell for it, and and then I read and studied lots of other stuff. I worked I worked on a play with my sister Nellie about Jane and Cassandra, and and now I'm working on a on a film as well, uh, which is around my experience having played Jane Bennett, um but it's also it's a sort of uh fiction, fictionalized true story. Oh, we'll have to hear more about that. Uh well we'll and Gabby's very much involved with that as well. So we met when I did an interview for Gabby, and we've been to but we've been connected ever since and have been to Baltimore. We went to Jasna, the Jane Austen Society of North America together uh last year. And uh and so Jane Austen is playing a big part of my my life still.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Austin's still connecting people.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Still connecting people, and and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

And Gabrielle, how did you first come to Jane Austen?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

I first came to Jane Austen because of my mother, and um I come from a very um a family of teachers and writers, so I've inevitably wound up in that mode myself. My mother used to refer to Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Dickens just in a kind of everyday thing with quotations, and so I started to read Austen in a very stilted um juvenile way when I was about 10 or 11. I I remember trying to read Pride and Prejudice and sort of getting it, but sort of not. And then I watched the 1981 BBC adaptation by Faye Weldon, the feminist novelist, and that was my Austin adaptation, as well as the Greg Ars and Laurence Livier old Hollywood version. So I knew it through those period adaptations, and then started reading Pride and Prejudice with a real vengeance once I was in my mid-teens, and just went into Austin from there. And for me, it was always that she was a satirist, it wasn't like romantic writing, because I was always taught that distinct distinction between the sort of romantic movement that was poetry and philosophy, and the literary movement that was you know the Picar esque novel, the you know, epistolary novel, things like that. So I learned it from a very kind of literary position. I was thanks to my mother, you know. I mean, she you know, she was she was my big influence, and she's no longer with us. But if she knew what I was doing now today, what I have done, she would explode with pride. My lovely mother. I love that. Yeah, the fact that I've sat stood there in Bath talking about Austin, that I've interviewed Jane Bennett, that I've you know done all these things that I've done, published, she would be beside herself.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

Making mom proud.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

You know, it's it's funny because you mention which your Pride and Prejudice adaptation is, and that's what we talked a lot about with um our first episode, sort of debating the 1995 and 2005 adaptations. And I have this distinct memory of babysitting one night uh for about six hours, and I found this DVD set of the 1995 series, and so I was like, Well, six hours, I'm here for about six hours, so I just put it on and watched like the whole thing. Um, and it was it it got me hooked. And then the 2005 came out, and I I can't even tell you how many times I've seen that. But tell us, Susanna, about your experience being on set with that. I also understand that you have a family connection yourself to Pride and Prejudice.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yes, my mother, okay, talking about mothers. Um, so my own mother, um Polly Adams, uh, is is a wonderful actress, theatre actor mostly, and she in 1967, um, it was the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, um, and she played Jane Bennett. So, and I didn't even know that until so um what's extraordinary about that is that they it was so sort of put together, it was a bit shaky, but um Mary Bennett isn't in it at all. So they've actually dispensed with Mary Bennett, which which is just shocking and appalling, as we know, especially in the light of this this new series, you know, which which puts her right upstage and centre quite brightly. But you know, to to think that she wasn't even worth I mean, Mum laughs about it, says it's just shocking, really. But uh, but I have got wonderful photographs of her playing it, looking beautiful. And uh my son as well. I was pregnant with my son Finney when I was filming. So I was I was pretty distracted with that going on. And of course it must have been fun. Yeah. The early mornings were not great, but beautiful places, you know, to be in. Um but but quite tight costumes, you know, dances and things like that. Oh yeah. Anyway, Finn is now, because it was as we know, over 30 years ago now, and he is a director, and what was interesting that on the 30-year anniversary um of Pride and Prejudice 95, he himself was directing a a play uh of Pride, he's a theatre director, Pride and Prejudice, sort of. So it continued into that generation as well, into my son who was now involved in it. So yeah, they're all with it's a family thing.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

I feel like this episode should just be titled Austin and the Family. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

It's just like just continues, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

What was it like stepping into your mother's shoes then? Also playing Jade Bennett.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah, well, I mean, she's very hands-off about anything like that, you know. She was very um I remember saying as I read it, I said, Mom, have you thought about playing Mrs. Bennett? And that's when she I said, It's a great character, it's such a great role. And she looked at me like I was, yes. It's like one of the most classic, you know, roles available around. But she went, and that's when she told me that she played it. I don't think I think I was even aware of it up to that point. So, you know, we didn't engage um particularly about it. I mean, it's a bit like I suppose, you know, how many people play Shakespeare roles, you know, continue on. So it wasn't like you you do just sort of hand it over to the next person. I mean, I think we did have a conversation or two about some of the key aspects of her, you know, the her languidity and her passivity, I suppose. You know, I think we did, but but I certainly felt no pressure. I mean, I think coming from an acting family, you know, for generations and we all respect each other's space within whatever it is that we're doing, I suppose. You know, there's a sort of understanding as best we can. Some people say, God, it must be very competitive, but it's strangely enough it isn't. It's the opposite to that, because I think you all have an understanding that you're all trying to what you're trying to do with roles or with acting.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Yeah, supportive of each other's ways of interpreting characters. Jane Austen offers so much scope for interpretation for characters, because her writing is so clever and so nuanced, is like you learn as you go with interpreting characters. And I think you know, there's pe people can have their interpretations of that role because the writing, the foundational writing's so good.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

I mean, talking about interpretation, the series that we're talking about is the entire interpretation of a character who we really don't see that much of in the book. So before we get into the other Bennett sister, and knowing that we might have some biases here, I have to ask, who is your favorite Bennett sister?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Uh, I'll go first because I'm gonna say I'm torn between um the oldest and the youngest, Jane and Lydia. Okay, very opposite. I yeah. The one reason because I really, really like Jane and Bingley's love story. That's the one that um Darcy and Elizabeth is obviously very powerful, very important, but Jane and Bingley's lit that makes me cry. That brings tears. It's so sweet. It that's the one, that's the love story that I see as being so romantic, so absolutely pure, unquestioning. I love Darcy and Elizabeth, it's very dramatic, it's got twists and turns, but Bingley is just a sweetheart, and him and Jane just want them, yeah. Just they're good people, and then I really like Lydia because she's terrible. She's just so she's just awful, and I t it's terrible, but I really do see more of myself in Lydia. If you ask like which Bennett sister are you, I'm like, yeah, I'm the one that gets drunk at parties. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

You identify with. How about you, Susanna? Gosh, I don't know. I've never been asked to choose. Um, it's a bit like choosing a child, isn't it? Who's your favourite thing? Have to having to identify that. I I I I mean, obviously I love Lizzie. I mean, she's brilliant, she's an amazing character, and her depth and intelligence and reach and you know spirit. Um, because she's but she's given that, she's given the sort of platform for that. Um but now, of course, you know, I'm looking at Mary in a completely different way. Oh, yeah. The way we are asked to, and sort of the marginalized characters are coming into the centre, which I think is very true of all sorts of areas in art and drama at the moment. And I think it's very in keeping with with the time. So, you know, I'm seeing Mary through a different lens, you know, I can see her and and experience Mary in a different way. But I too love Lydia, I have to say, um, and she makes me laugh. And who doesn't like a laugh? You know, um, and I feel sorry for her, you know, because she she's just you know, she's got terrible taste in men.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

She just likes a uniform.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

She hasn't grown up yet, has she?

SPEAKER_02 14:08

I mean, could you imagine if you were stuck with the choice you made at 16?

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Yeah, yeah. That's true. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Well, I want to set the stage a little bit for the other Bennett sister, because there's the show and then there's the almost 500-page book. So to catch our listeners up, the book and the show are a coming-of-age story focused on the middle Bennett sister, Mary. She's generally seen as this sort of sad, boring sister, but also a little pretentious in the original work. And she's had some pretty memorable representations and adaptations, including the 95 version you were in, Susanna. So I want to note that, like many book-to-screen works, the show of the other Bennett sister leaves out some things from the book, makes changes to other parts, etc. So we'll talk a little bit in our conversation about how some of those things change. But um, I want to start with you asking Susanna, what do you think of your uh little sister Mary in this series?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Oh, she's wonderful, isn't she? She's wonderful. And I think everyone is united in feeling that everyone I've spoken to, she's captured it so beautifully. Um, the spirit, but but also it has got the spirit of Austin in it, very much, I think. And I was worried about that, to be honest, in the first couple of episodes. I thought, oh no, this looks like it's slightly gimmicky. You know, like two episodes in, I mean, I was beginning, I still wasn't convinced. I think really because they had to keep the other Bennett Sisters as kind of cartoon-like as you know, out of the way. Um, and of course, I was wanting more detail in in initially in the Pride and Prejudice itself, and as it was, and because that was quite broad brush strokes at the beginning, I was a little bit frustrated, and I thought, you know, what's going on here? And they're taking liberties, and then of course, by by episode three, I was completely won over, and and then it just got better and better, and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. I absolutely love it. I'd watch it all over again, really, and made me laugh. And the boys, the men rather the forearms, the forearms, it was shot beautifully, and the romance was shot beautifully. It literally was so well directed, and it just made me laugh out loud, you know. What more do you want, really? It was fantastic, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

But did your opinion of Mary change from watching this series?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I think it's meant to, isn't it, as well? I mean, I think that's a as I was saying, you know, this I think it's a very current idea or theme to take the marginalized characters and put them in the centre and uh you know make us sit up and look at I mean Collins as well, of course, it does that famously, you know, because he's he's misunderstood in this. He is, of course, slightly repellent, uh, and he plays that beautifully. But you know, the the point is that we're asked to look at look at people through a different lens and to accept and to be more empathetic and understanding and accepting of you know how we see things and how we see people and how we acknowledge people. And I think that that's can only be a good thing. I think there's this feels like a movement happening like that at the moment, you know. Yeah. I this felt in in alignment with that. Wonderful to see Lucy Bryars in it playing Hill.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

I mean, that's yes, the your literal sister Mary on screen. She comes back.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

I found that very moving, but it is very moving anyway. So, you know, I was washed with tears and with laughter.

SPEAKER_02 18:00

She almost gives advice to her past self. There was a lot of like tongue-in-cheek kind of meta moments there on screen, we got.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yes, I think so. I found it really kind of extraordinary, and then as it finished, because I did sit there and binge watch um eight episodes because I'd had time to watch three, and I hadn't had time to watch the rest, so I watched into the wee hours, into the small hours, and then as it finished, I don't know if you've experienced this, and the tenth episode rolled away. Up on the screen came Pride and Prejudice 1995 and an image of Colin and uh Jennifer. And it was so nostalgic. You know, it was yeah, it's been an amazing, I've loved it. It's been an amazing experience. I think it brings in something that's very nourishing and healthy as well, you know. I mean, because she is about there is a moral centre, isn't there, to her work, ultimately. You know, she identifies and skews the foibles of human nature. Someone said that once, and I thought that's absolutely it. And you get a good dose of that, but ultimately you do get such a centre of integrity in her work, you know, and I think it's so good that that that nourishment is still going on, and I for want of sounding very preachy, you know, but it's still people still want that, they still want the good stuff and to to be about you know the moral messages, you know, the fundamental moral messages that unite us all and you know bring us together. I think in this day and age, I'm gonna stop talking about it. I think in this day and age, we need that more than ever. I think we need to be unified uh in in a very, very positive and empathetic way. And I think that the Miss Bennett, this the other Miss Bennett is very much about doing that, draws on on our empathetic spirit and the way that you look at people without judgment and see-through, and you know, and and Austin did that herself.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Well said. I'm curious, Gabrielle, how did you initially read or analyse Mary and did the other Bennett sister change that?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yes, in a number of ways. I have always um the perspective for me, for Mary, is a very interesting one from a literary critical point of view of the different voices that the five sisters are given by Austin. So the outspokenness of Lizzie, her rebellious revolutionary tone, the he is a gentleman, I am a gentleman's daughter, so far we are equal. Her declaration to Lady Catherine is very, very important, radical statement. And Mary in the novel is the counterpoint to that because she keeps coming up with Fordyce's sermons, which of course was the advice to young ladies about virtue, obedience, and modesty. So it's like Austin was being very clever with her depiction of the sisters in these different roles. Now, what I see Janice Hadlow doing in the novel, and then subsequently in the adaptation, is an evolution of Mary from the foundational figure that she is in the novel to this wonderful, as you said, coming of age story where she learns about rebellion, and it's almost like she moves from four dice, doesn't she, to Wordsworth because there's that kind of you know, there's all that romantic um, you know, emotion recollected in tranquility, you know, the child is father of the Man, all these things that she's learns from Wordsworth, and that obviously is very integral to her love story, and you know, taking her to the Lake District, whereas Lizzie never got further than Derbyshire, Mary gets up to Cumbria, you know, and she actually follows in the footsteps. She has the epiphany and and and of William, and particularly they bring in that facet, like you were saying, about bringing in the female voice, bringing in the marginalized voice, and that's Dorothy Wordsworth, as well as Mary Bennett, you know, real and fictional marginalized women, which is in that tradition and that literary legacy of somebody like Gene Reese in Wide Sargasso C through Jane Eyre, you know, through the prism of the original foundation text, we actually open up stories, and that's what I think is the wonderful thing that Hadlow as a novelist has done, and then I think that this 10-part series does for viewers, for enthusiasts of the literature of the period, of Austin, of Regency literature, of romantic poetry. It it pays, it gives a service to so many different aspects of readers and fans, and the way in which like you discover and you get insight and you get more perspectives on you know a character, you give them an arc of learning and change because we have the arc of learning and change in Pride and Prejudice with Lizzie and Darcy. Both of them learn their lessons and they learn the resolution and they learn the compromise.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Can I just ask that? Is that true that most of the central characters, protagonists, go through a learning in all of her books?

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Yeah, some do and some don't. Some needs to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

It's a certainly in persuasion, certainly in Northanger Abbey. Oh, sense and sensibility is the maybe in Mansfield Park, it's other people, the fanny rather than Fanny learning. I think you're great to point that out. I mean, this story in its essence is a story of learning to have a freedom of expression and accept yourself and looking at Fordyce's sermons, which is very much a prescription of how to be a woman, what to do, and then going to Wordsworth. It's a prescription of how to be a woman first, a freedom of interpretation for yourself. And I feel like we still feel that today. You know, how should women look? How should women act? You should shouldn't be this way. Don't accept yourself that way, make change. And Mary is saying, no, this is who I am. And she goes on a 10-episode discovery to get there, and I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

And I think almost on a generational basis, every generation has to learn this and discover this, you know, that we look back and we see, oh yes, there was service done to this with the poems of like Caroline Duffy, you know, giving the female perspective of myths. Uh, there was, you know, Wide Sagasso C giving a female marginal perspective of the mad wife, you know, and and I think similarly, we're in that kind of zone of saying, like, you know, like you were saying, Susanna, about you know, understanding, you know, the plain sister, the sister with her spectacles and her, you know, her demure, modest ways, who's not as accomplished or pretty. I mean, it's absolutely wonderful. It's a it's a pure, you know, I mean, again, coming of age, Cinderella type story. But I think the way in which um she's depicted, particularly on screen, is just marvelous. I I I love the the wit with which they directed the scene.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

The glasses, um, Ella Broccoleri. I I hope I'm saying that right, but the way that she I mean, in the first like two episodes, you're just like, ooh, honey, like, how can we help you here? And then by the end, you're like, she's so cute, and I love it. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

And I love it when they give her that little pop of colour. Yes, a little wardrobe dress, or a little, a little, her little kind of jacket and everything with a little bit of crimson or fuchsia. It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

The art department have worked so beautifully well on her and all and her development and her blossoming, really, which is what we witness. You know, it's done so subtly and beautifully, isn't it? You know, the she comes fully into herself. It's not all about you know looking like a beautiful creature, you know, conforming in any way, it's actually going inward and becoming true to who she is and and you know, becoming visible in that way and being seen by by significant people around her. It's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

You know, one of the biggest differences I noticed from the book to show is that in the book, before Mary even gets to London, she visits with Jane, then she visits with Lizzie, then she even visits at Longbourne uh with Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas. And all of that kind of gets interspersed throughout the show rather than it being before she gets to London. And I thought it was a really interesting choice because it gives us more of the sisters throughout the show. Um and I kind of missed that in the book, seeing the sisters interact and almost the post-credit scene of what does life look like for Jane after marriage and for Lizzie after marriage? And it was, as a fan, it was really cool to see. But I'm curious, Susanna, like what was it like seeing the representation of the sisters sort of interacting? Did it bring back any memories of your time on set?

SPEAKER_01 28:02

I mean, of course, it was joyous, joyous to explore, you know, how they're being depicted in their world and and having a look at it. It was it was a bit like playing with the doll's house or something.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

I love the moment where they're all listening at the door and then grumpy, pregnant Lydia just being so dramatic.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Very funny. I thought it was beautifully realised and and right. And I feel as if you know that probably is how their lives would have played out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

You know, I think very close to I think the way in which they show Mrs. Bennett having that huge that expectation that Mary will be her companion. Yes, you know, moving into that zone, that spinsterhood zone of saying, Well, you're gonna be with me because you're not being married, you're gonna be, you're gonna be my companion.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

It feels very authentic and real, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 28:55

Yes, yeah, and having to resist it's like Austin resisted absolutely stubbornly the notion of being a governess or a teacher, but um Mary embraces it, saying, I want to educate younger people, I want to educate girls, but also her stubborn resistance to fall in love or to be put into a shape that she isn't.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Um, and that's very true of the real general thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah, there also is a fantastic cast, Richard E. Grant coming in as Mr. Bennett for those first couple episodes, uh, Donald Finn as the love interest, the charming Mr. Hayward. We've already brought up Ella Broccoly. Uh, she was fantastic. I remember first seeing her in Call the Midwife years ago, and she just really seemed to envelop the character of Mary. Um, did you all have a favorite performance? Um do you think the character of Jane was given justice in this part? What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Well, I think we weren't we were deliberately not focusing on Jane anyway, or on those other sisters mostly. So I wasn't really looking at Jane particularly. She was uh in the background, wasn't she? And that was that's where she should be. But I I did, I thought she was superb this actor and so um true and subtle and funny and witty. Uh and the and the the both of the the male actors were quite wonderful as well. Um it's all that reserve of the time, isn't it? So that thing of not being able to say what you actually think, which just spills fantastic um tension. Yeah. And and they all played that so beautifully, you know, that you the unsaid was so beautifully played. These are really great actors.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

I think the scene I couldn't stop laughing at is when they were all stretching before the hike, like Mary starts stretching.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

I know great. I love it. I love that they had, of course, you've got to have Caroline Bingley in. You know, she's the what's the worst that can happen? She's kind of OG mean getting stuck with Caroline Bingley on the side of a mountain in the lake district when she's sprained her ankle. Brilliant. I have to give an absolute massive shout out to Indira Vama, who plays Aunt Gardener. She is the fairy godmother, she is everybody's favourite auntie. I love the way the gardeners were portrayed. I love the way they expanded their story because it's so much there in Pride and Prejudice. But then we go to their London townhouse, you know, we see their domestic setting, and she just says, Come and live with me, Mary. Escape and come and be here, and I will escort you into society, you know, and that's so wonderful. And I think that Indira Vama is obviously just splendid, but I just feel that her way, she was so subtle in her kindness, but in her strength, which reminded me very much of Joe David from 1995. I think, yeah, you know, embodying that figure, making that kind figure so interesting. You know, there's you know, there's nothing kind of weak about her. She's, you know, it's that thing of like stepping up and and helping Mary with her vocabulary of how to express herself. I thought that was wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

We should mention too, Indira Varma is another Pride and Prejudice alumna. She was the Caroline Bingley-esque character in Bride and Prejudice.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Absolutely. She's gone from villain to good guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

I loved that it portrayed a, you know, we we hear so much about what is a good marriage, what is a bad marriage. We see a lot of examples in Pride and Prejudice in a lot of Jane Austen novels, but it's particularly referenced by Mary a lot in the series of what is a bad marriage. The Gardeners represent a good marriage, a loving marriage, and we don't really get that that often.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

I think it's because it's there's far less tension and far less drama and conflict. Good marriages in Austin, just they just bibble along, you know. They just people get on. A steady marriage, nice and steady, and you just you know, they enjoy it. But you know, it's far more entertaining, like the Palmers or or the Bennett's, you know, the sparring spouses are far more interesting. Yes, of course. But I think that's where both Pride and Prejudice and this version of the Gardeners keeps them interesting because they are these people who become instrumental in helping to shape other characters' lives through their example and their you know, their their intelligence, their emotional intelligence, compared to like Mrs. Bennett, who you know she's just completely like, you know, what are you gonna do for me, you know, daughters?

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Yeah. I want to talk about some of those marginalized characters that we've mentioned. Um, particularly Charlotte Lucas. I thought her sort of coming alive in this was interesting, as you know, part voice of reason, but also part secret mean girl. What did you all think about her representation? I thought she was great.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

I I think it was interesting. I think they probably had to take that route with her a little bit as we were going into a more sympathetic lens, finally, with Collins, saying he's a misunderstood character. So what that I think that probably would have forced that route with with making Charlotte a little bit more um mean, just close. Yeah, in order to rank up that that the empathy for him. But it was a little bit of license.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

I mean, you know, yeah, who knows whether I think kindness rather than satire won the day. I think because the way that Collins and Charlotte are in Pride and Prejudice is that he is just irredeemably awful. Yeah. And Charlotte has found a way of managing him when he's in the garden, he keeps himself to himself, she keeps, and she's found a way of doing it. But I think they want to kind of dig a little deeper for this as a sort of sequel to the marriage, and say, Well, maybe if you understand Mr. Collins a little bit better, then you might be happier, Charlotte. But I think Charlotte's perfectly fine in the I you know, I think they did this license, but I think Charlotte has it absolutely sussed in the original novel. She gets it. I think she had it absolutely down in the in the original novel. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

In the book version of The Other Bennett Sister, we get a little bit more of Mr. Collins. I mentioned that the sort of timeline structure changed to the series, but in the book, Mary goes to stay at Longbourn with Charlotte and Mr. Collins for some time before heading to London. And she eventually goes because she has developed such a relationship with Mr. Collins. They are locked in his study a lot, he's teaching her Greek, and Charlotte is getting very angry about all this. Mary ends up departing to London as a result of this because Collins essentially says that if he had chosen Mary as his wife, perhaps he would have been happier. Perhaps he would have had someone who had the same interests as him and could understand him. We get a tiny bit of that in the series with him sort of giving the advice of um, you know, happiness is what you make of it, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

You do have a sense of she understands him, and that perhaps if he had been listened to in a different way, he might have been received in a different way.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

Perhaps also just being on the sidelines constantly. She understands to just ask or listen to someone else who's been kind of pushed off to the side because they're not X, Y, or Z that society says you have to be.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I thought that worked.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

I thought that I think that he would have kept her, he would have kept her stewing with four dice, though, and wouldn't have.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

We needed Ryder, didn't we?

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yes. Well, it would have been to sort of to sort of say a word for the Victorians, it would have been like uh George Eliot, like Middlemarch, like Dorothea in Middlemarch. She could have potentially like become this like stagnated figure, you know, with the sort of scholarly minister husband, which you know Dorothea risks in in Middlemarch. And I think that's really interesting, the way that Hadlow kind of takes up that uh the mantle of continuing the novel into the different period, into the sort of Victorian period. I think that's very cleverly done on her part, and you know, those kind of like the foreshadowing sense of you know, rather like Death Comes to Pemberley, you know, when they you they go into like a sensational, more Victorian world, you know, with with the characters. I think it's really interesting when you know you transplant them into that way.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Well, we have to talk next about the big kahuna mother, Mrs. Bennett's. Um, she always has such an interesting interpretation. I think she's so differently portrayed in the 95 versus 2000 versions. We get an even different side of her here, very much um a more exaggerated version of her in the book. Um, almost a continuation, but a little bit more desperate, perhaps, a little bit meaner. We really see how she treats Mary. What did you all think about Mrs. Bennett in this series and the relationship with Mary and who she comes despite her mother?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Well, well, I think I think again it was about balance, uh dramatically, dramatic balance, and I think they recognized that dramatically they needed to make it as broad and as and as and as heavy as they did, because um obviously the payoff is that we empathize more with the Mary character, and she can play against that. So I think it was very necessary to make her as bold and as fierce. I I I thought it was you know, for my taste, a little bit exaggerated for my Mrs. Bennett idea, you know, um the idea of Mrs. Bennett, but I could see why they needed to do that, why they needed to go that far for the balance of the drama and for it to work as effectively. So um I understood why. We all have our different versions, don't we, of these characters in our heads. And the whole thing about Jane Austen, as you know, I'm sure, is that she didn't give physical descriptions of any of her characters and yet they live so vividly because she's such an amazing writer. She has one or two words that just bring a character completely to life, and so it's so interesting because everyone has their own version strongly in their head. So she wasn't entirely my version, but I appreciated that she was necessarily that broad and and and that bad, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

What is it? They say for every action, there has to be an equal reaction. It's like she had to be so terrible for Mary to have such a big uh coming of age change.

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Yes, absolutely. I think it yeah, it does service to that, and it gave gives gives Aunt Gardner the foil to push back, and it worked, and that Mrs. Bennett is a beauty. The fact that Ruth Jones is so lovely, lovely looking in that period costume, and you know, that Mrs. Bennett was a was in her day a beauty, you know, like Lydia, like Jane. You know, that she's got to have she clearly, you know, the attraction that she and Mr. Bennett had, and then you know, they landed with five daughters, and it was all this. She then has to battle her way through that and battle her daughters into the marriage market and be the way she was. And I think, yeah, I think it was good. I think it's if Mrs. Bennett is entering middle age and maturing, yeah, that's pretty much how she'd be. Yeah, you know, spending as much time at Pemberley as possible.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

I just loved Mr. Darcy being like, Nope, I'm busy, can't come in. Nothing to do with it. No, it was very Hugh Lori from the um sense of sensibility. I loved that reference.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Um if you've got a big enough stately home, you can try and avoid your mother-in-law as much as possible.

SPEAKER_02 42:17

Yeah, I think she is like the OG mother-in-law we would all want to avoid.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

I mean, I I too enjoyed the Darcy absence. I thought that was beautifully placed.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

And I love the fact that they eventually say, No, you're not gonna have your daughter as your companion. We found a nice girl for you called Susan. And she says, How could I have a Susan? It's brilliant because the kind of snobbery of names is brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Yeah, it's amazing. Um, you know, this is a very modern adaptation in some ways, and um not as much in other ways. I I felt like you know, you get so many things like Bridgerton and these sort of modern regency era adaptations with modern music, um, not so much correct uh costumes, um, modern um just sensibilities, the way that they speak, things like that. And then you also get colorblind casting. And this I thought was an interesting interpretation because it did have some of those modern elements like the colorblind casting, you know, changing um the speech a little bit, but otherwise it felt very um regency era, and it was also a slower pace. I'm kind of curious what you guys think about this compared to some other adaptations that you've been seeing over the years.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Well, I think Gabby can probably speak really well on this because she's very much around the the fan culture and and also because I haven't seen enough of of the this of this kind of stuff. But I thought it was a perfect blend, really, this sort of hybrid, as you say, it was a kind of hybrid. hybrid and I thought it really balanced and brought in uh the the that sort of Bridgeton world and the sort of you know more modern looking through the modern lens fan lens almost um at it and the diversity being represented beautifully also it it did feel very authentic and very um true didn't it somehow and detailed and and as if they were it felt as if they were observing the period correctly and with detail so which I love you know and obviously I was I do respond to that more in truth but I see absolutely where the kind of Bridgetan style is so effective and and appealing and and I think that there is nothing wrong with the two being blended and I thought this managed that perfectly again about balance the balance was so perfectly realized. She's not a museum piece and we're coming away from Austin being a museum piece which I think is fantastic and I believe Austin herself would say I'm not a museum piece. And and so I think she'd be pleased with it and it has to change with time and we have to take a different look at it and this is the way it's changing and at first I think it's a little bit uncomfortable for some people but I think it's adapting now to become something really good and interesting that's where that's where I am with it.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Yeah and I think it and I think along the way with that it's actually it's almost kind of uh fortuitously created a more authentic Georgian and regency depiction because of the diversity in society you know because they're showing London they're showing different areas you know as having this diversity of population.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Which of course they did they wouldn't know it if it wasn't for Hogarth apparently but because you know he was a social realist artist and he didn't he didn't do all the only the gentry but but that's the truth there was a very diverse presence.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

London, Liverpool Cardiff Bristol the port cities the the reach of you know the Royal Navy the Empire meant that there's this mixture of people in the cities in the metropolis areas so you when it shows Mary you know as governess to you know a a mixed family you know with kind of black and white pupils and she's you know mixing in these different contexts that's actually pretty pretty good. You know that was what Austin was moving into with Sandton. I know that you know people love to have that kind of Austin was this way but she was a contemporary social satirist so I think that's how come her work translates into these adaptations yeah because she was writing social satire she wasn't just writing romance and you know love stories coming of age she was satirizing the world that she saw and and I think that's why it can translate and we can you know revisit and reenvision and build these afterlifes of characters you know and say well there's more to it than that and if she'd have had the opportunity maybe she would have you know explored this further you know it's often thought you know what would Austin the early Victorian have been you know it's quite heartbreaking in some ways you know and moving to think where her novels would have gone.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Well you've just put it very well Austin is more than just the romance. However let's take this moment to go into the romance of the show Mary deserved it Mary deserves it you know we've got you know on the on the marriage market here we've got two very different love interests we've got Mr. Hayward very much the bookish type uh and then we've got Mr. Ryder very much the rakish type um what did you think about the two you know I should also note that the romance in the book is a bit of a slower pace. It's a lot of hours spent reading and talking I thought that that was interpreted very nicely in the show to be a little bit faster and also just very romantic. We get more romance more men um more female gaze particularly Mary seems to love a man's forearm anytime anyone's rolling up their sleeves she's here for it. So what did you all think about Mary's romantic arc throughout the show?

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Well it's beautifully realized isn't it it's so well shot and paced um and the two the the contrast in the men and masculinity being so beautifully realized. Joyous men who are beautiful um but also have fantastic spirits and you know they fantastically played these characters and I think we need we need to see more of those kind of male depictions um and I I loved them both and one felt attracted to them both of course yes it was a proper love triangle really a proper love triangle because she was pinted in both directions it's a theme this year we saw it in Bridgerton too the man asking the woman to be a mistress yeah yeah which is really interesting again shades of Victorian novelists presenting you know from Tolstoy to Elliot you know presenting the heroine with that terrible dilemma about happiness and also as far as Mary's concerned that kind of intellectual satisfaction I love the way that she's wooed via literature she's via philosophy and poetry poetry in particular which is about feeling isn't it about moving from the head to the heart yeah and awakening and expanding and you know which is as we know you know when you fall in love that's what happens and he they find a way to to release her from her restriction you know and uh and that's what happens and they and it's so beautifully depicted.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

You know one of the things that I've always loved about Pride and Prejudice is that um it's not Lizzie becoming better for Darcy. It's not Darcy becoming better for Lizzie. They learn from each other whereas a lot of love stories particularly of that era you get a lot of men prescribing how the woman should change. And in this what I really liked is um that Mary is getting an education from Hayward but of emotions rather than here's what you should read to learn more like Mr. Collins wants um here's what you should do to look better like her mother is saying he's saying here's how you should learn to feel so that you can become who you are and I thought that was such a different and beautiful education.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah beautifully put no it's very gratifying and and I was I was also thinking oh no you know don't tell me that it's gonna be all about the man at the end you know happily ever after don't do that to me and of course by episode eight I was going together with it but I'm so disappointed if she doesn't go down that aisle.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

I know but we see her yelling at him and hitting him in perhaps the most different style proposal we've ever seen in a Jane Austen period drama what did you all think of the end you know she accepts him accepts herself are we happy with it in the end yeah I felt I felt it worked I felt very satisfied with it because I think Ella's portrayal of Mary really convinced me when she chose her pathway as a teacher that she was very contented with that.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

It was a sort of double ending wasn't it because it was going to be like she was going to go into teaching find her independence tr find her true independent fulfillment and then of course the love story comes in and yeah as the kind of like footnote to her life that then she can be happy and she would be happy despite not being with him but she's happier being with him.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yeah I like that I like that very much I like that too what do you think our takeaway of Mary should be from this story? I think that you don't have to be saved by marriage and I think it's very cleverly structured that she's a young woman who finds um her direction true to the period as to the choices that would have been available to her but that she manages to excel and have agency in in in the end ultimately and it's about being true to yourself isn't it in the end what it all comes down to and I think that's what she she learns and matures into into into standing by her own values and what she believes and having confidence in that and she she grows up she matures and it's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

You know Gabrielle I'm curious you are an author uh a writer you just told me before we got started here that you interviewed Ella who played Mary yourself and you also live in Bath and lead literary tours on Austin.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

What is it about this author and her works that pull people in that make them go over to England or travel within the country to do a tour and learn more about this woman it's I mean I've been asked this question a lot and particularly last year the 250th anniversary I was asked this question a lot uh it's her voice it's her voice in the novels because she is the intermediary between us and the characters is because of that free indirect narrative style that you know we talk about in terms of the genre of how she wrote but she came upon the novel as a girl as a young woman at a time where the novel was doing lots of different things and was trying to find its direction whether it was Picar esque writing epistolary novels you know different types of fiction how do you portray characters how do you write in this third person or this first person and Jane Austen consolidated a lot of that methodology and her voice speaks to the reader so that we feel a connection with her and then with the characters and I think that's what she brings uniquely to the novel. I don't know many other novelists who have that ability because we feel we know her as a character within the framework of the storytelling and I think that's what does it and it's that emotional connection we feel emotionally connected with Jane as a person which we don't I mean I I'm speaking for myself I don't feel that emotional connection with Charles Dickens you know certainly not with George Elliot. I feel like I'm being lectured at which is very good you know it's good medicine you know George Elliot gives you a philosophical lecture halfway through the novel but Jane Austen is your friend and I think that was the thing when I spoke to Ella about playing the character and when she said this is going to get you Susanna it's gonna get you right in the feels she turned up at the table read and that was the first time that she met Lucy Bryars and she said that Lucy went up to her and like hugged her and said I'm so pleased to hand the baton over to you to be Mary for like another generation of viewers and she said her scenes with Lucy were just so thrilling she said because one day when there's they've got that scene where they're in the kitchen and when they were shooting that day Ella said that she had a migraine all that day and that she was really between takes she had just go and like sit in a dark room because her head was just pounding and she said Lucy looked after her all day.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

She was kind to me as back then as well when I was pregnant and uncomfortable and Lucy Briars was very particularly was very sensitive and kind to me then.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

And isn't it just the way I think that's the thing is like Austin brings out the best in so many people it just you know makes us all you know very that's very true.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

It also felt like watching this that this show was made by fans of Austin for fans of Austin. I mean you have as we've noted two people from other adaptations in it there's so many references that we've already talked about here's even I mean you brought up uh Francis Bernie which Jane Austen initially started reading that book is brought up many times in the Other Bennett Sister both book and show um you know what do you think Susanna there is about Pride and Prejudice in particular that keeps making people come back to adaptations every couple of decades to new interpretations like this one that's quite a big question.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

What is it about it? I think it's a joyous book isn't it but it has such great humanity and uh as well and I think we recognize ourselves in it. And I think the journey the romance obviously the way the romance plays out is something that we all resonate with and respond to the way it's written the time that it takes I think um family the way it observes family and family structures and where we are within family I think there is something particularly joyous about pride and prejudice there's something about the atmosphere of it that I think lifts people's spirits and and I love the sisterly theme. I think people respond to the sister theme which is an essential part of it. I think a lot of us recognise and relate to that either because we have it or perhaps because we don't have it it encapsulates something about being a human being and being a woman in particular so I think I think that's you know why it works.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

And you're sort of revisiting the novel as well in your next project can you tell us more about Jane Bennett's second spring?

SPEAKER_01 59:50

Oh okay well that's a visibility story as well it's a mar it's a bit about marginalized it's a it's a sort of metafictional metaphysical comedy drama it's a kind of hybrid it's it's got a strange kind of um surreal element to it but it's using themes it's drawing on themes on Austin themes and it's all about having been highly visible at one time in one's life for a particular character in this case Jane Bennett and being the good girl and what then happens later and later in life kind of midlife with visibility in being marginalized or feeling a little bit outside of it and and the experiences of that. But it's a comedy doesn't sound as though it's very funny but it is it is funny I hope and Gabby's been very much involved as well and advising and you know yeah hopefully it's looking looking like it's gonna work out this year so we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Well we'll have to look out for that. So for people who want to follow more of both of your work where can we find more of your work going forward Gabrielle and Susanna?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

Jane Bennett Second Spring so you can follow us and see what's happening there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:08

Well I'm regularly uh published in the Jane Austen Regency World magazine that you can subscribe to and um I've done some lots of articles for that publication including a very in-depth interview with Susanna um for one of the issues last year and forthcoming is my interview with Ella and my review of the other Bennett Sister and I'm hoping to also talk to Indi Rivama later this year about her roles in Austin.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Well thank you both so much for joining us to talk about the Other Bennett sister and all of our expanded conversation on Pride and Prejudice and all things Austin. It was a pleasure to have you both on thank you so much pleasure thank you and that'll put the period on this episode of period thank you for listening if you've enjoyed today's episode please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and leave us a review. I'm your host Allison and our producer and editor is my Lene Bira. This podcast was made for listeners like them