DMU movie skilled options in new film concerning the making of BBC’s well-known Pride and Prejudice collection.

A movie skilled from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) performs a key function in a brand new movie made to mark the 30^th Anniversary of the BBC’s seminal adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Adapted for tv by famend screenwriter Andrew Davies, the BBC’s well-known six-part serialisation of Austen’s 1813 novel brought on a stir when first broadcast in September 1995, attracting ten million viewers per episode.

Now, a brand new movie produced by Jane Austen’s House at Chawton, known as Celebrating 30 years of Pride and Prejudice, is ready to premier on YouTube at 9pm on 24 September –  the exact time the primary episode aired, 30 years in the past to the day.

The hour-long movie is an ‘in dialog’ between Andrew Davies and script editor Susie Conklin, as they recall the making of this collection.

The dialog is chaired by cultural historian Justin Smith, Professor of Cinema and Television History at DMU, and likewise options contributions from authentic cast-members Crispin Bonham-Carter (who performed Mr Bingley) and Susannah Harker (Jane Bennet).

(L to R  Justin Smith, Susie Conklin, and Andrew Davies.)

The movie was shot earlier than a stay viewers within the drawing room of Jane Austen’s home within the Hampshire villagen of Chawton, the place the novelist spent the final eight years of her life, and the place she penned the six novels for which she is now world-famous: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion.

Justin Smith mentioned: “It was an absolute pleasure to reunite Andrew Davies, Susie Conklin, Crispin Bonham-Carter and Susannah Harker within the hallowed environs of Jane Austen’s House for this very particular journey down reminiscence lane.

“It’s apparent within the movie how valuable this specific adaptation was for every of them on the time, how dedicated all of them have been to bringing Pride and Prejudice to the display screen in a contemporary, fashionable approach that was additionally completely respectful of its literary stature and its common recognition, and simply how a lot enjoyable all of them had on what was, by all accounts, a totally comfortable manufacturing in addition to an enormously profitable one.”

In the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice, the greatest recognized scene, and one which helped catapult Colin Firth to stardom, is the place Mr Darcy – performed by Firth – emerges from a lake totally clothed and dripping moist.

No such occasion happens in Austen’s novel – it was utterly made up for TV by Andrew Davies. But, within the new movie, Davies reveals that the well-known scene was not designed to replace Austen’s centuries-old story with a contemporary attractive second: “It wasn’t supposed to be sexy in any particular way, really,” he says.

“I simply had this concept as a result of I used to be regularly attempting to suppose ‘what’s Darcy feeling?’. Let’s hold the viewers parallel with him in a approach.

“At this time, he’s been in London internet hosting a moderately boring home social gathering with stuffy bores and snobs, and he’s coming again to Pemberley to host one other home social gathering in his nation home, with the identical bloody folks.

“He will need to have been so glad to get a day of his personal the place no one’s making any calls for on him. It is a sizzling summer time’s day, and he arrives at his home, and he sees his lake, and he thinks there’s my lake.

“I know what I would like to do. I would like to just take everything off and plunge into the cool water and forget about everything, except the fact that I’m alive.”

The movie can be obtainable right here, on YouTube from 9pm:

Andrew Davies’ archive – together with authentic variations of his Pride and Prejudice screenplay, and the papers of Pride and Prejudice producer Sue Birtwistle – are held at DMU in the Kimberlin Library’s Special Collections on the principle campus in Leicester.

Items from their archives, together with transmission scripts and manufacturing notes, have contributed to Austenmania! – a year-long exhibition at Jane Austen’s House, celebrating 30 years of the enduring variations of 1995: Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion and Clueless!

An on-line model of the exhibition can be obtainable right here: online version of the exhibition.

 

 

 

Posted on Wednesday 24 September 2025