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Stop ‘talking posh’ in period dramas, Austen producer tells actors

Jane Tranter, the woman behind the BBC’s Jane Austen adaptation The Other Bennet Sister, said actors should forget they are in period costume

The former BBC executive, who went on to co-found the Bad Wolf production company in 2015, told the Hay Festival that period dramas needed to stop “fetishising” the era in which the source material was set and learn to loosen the rules. Filming on The Other Bennet Sister, which is based on Janice Hadlow’s acclaimed novel from 2020 — inspired by Austen’s novel from 1813 — is due to begin in Wales next week and the show is set to be broadcast on BBC1 next year. There have been numerous film and TV adaptations based on Austen’s world, and the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, is generally regarded as the most successful.

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