to opine that the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is not very good?

[ScribblyGum]

Watching it with dd1 (15) as evidence of what constitutes a great romantic story after sitting through the utter shite that is the Harry Styles fan fiction movie After.

I know P&P is lots of other stuff but I wanted to show her something that I believed was excellent telly.

Four episodes in and I’ve come to the terrible realisation that actually it’s really dated, boring, badly acted and all in all a bit crap.

Far, far too much dull mimsy dancing.

Colin Firth is hot but doesn’t bring much to the part apart from posh snooty emotionally constipated hotness.

Alison Steadman's acting is just silly.

The music is too loud. Are the costumes a bit crap too? Not sure, there’s some bloody weird turbans going on on Caroline Bingley's head.

God it’s so BORING. Neither of us can be arsed to finish it.

I bet the Keira Knightly version is better

Good to hear that the BBC version of Persuasion is so good . It's my favourite Jane Austen novel. I'll have to get hold of the series!

IrishMamaMia

The one with Ciaran Hinds is a film rather than a series; there is also a later one with Rupert Penry-Jones as Wentworth. Nothing against the lovely Rupert, but it's the Ciaran Hinds one you want.

Thanks for the clarification @SenecaFalls I can't wait 😊!

Agree about BBC Persuasion film being the definitive one.

It just so happens to be available on You Tube and I have a day off :)

I've been thinking... would Mr Collins still inherit Longbourne if One of the Bennet sisters have a son in wedlock? Doesn't an entail usually mean the propoerty goes to the nearest living male relative? A grandson would beat a distant cousin, surely?

Pet I don't think so, as the inheritance can't pass via the female.

A bit like Princess Anne's son being behind Prince Edward's children in terms of being heir to the throne.

And if it were the case that a grandson could inherit there wouldn't have been such anxiousness as with 5 daughters you'd think one of them would produce a son.

TeenTimesTwo is right about the entail. Mr Collins would inevitably inherit.

Ah, ok, that makes sense. Ditto in Downton Abbey, though of course Lady Mary got round this nicely by marrying the distant cousin, then having a son before she was widowed.

Just as a reminder ...

The KK version is all wrong, she's too skinny and pouty. The BBC one I love, and while Mrs Bennett is indeed a comic character, Alison Steadman goes way over the top and is quite annoying.

KK is far too petulant and flouncy. I know Lizzie is young but the whole point of her character is that she is relatively mature and self assured for et age.

Matthew Mcfadden is proper lush though.

A Lizzie as beautiful as KK loses all credibility. The whole point of Lizzie is that she hasn’t been able to rely on looks alone and her attractiveness is deeply dependent on her personality. Not that she isn’t pretty, she is, but she’s not a beauty.

Jennifer was perfectly cast.

YANBU. I thought Jennifer Ehle too earnest for Lizzy. Knightly is too wooden, but I thought her playfulness was more in tune with the character I know from the book. Matthew McFadden I also preferred as Darcy.

I liked Alison Steadman's camp performance as Mrs Bennet - hits the spot very well as she was that type of character - although I'm probably in a minority as many people seemed to think her OTT.

To my mind by far the best two performances in the whole shebang were David Bamber's slithery, oily portrayal of Mr Collins, and the wonderful Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who was Lady Catherine to a tee. She was far superior to Judi Dench, who mostly seems to play herself. Julia Sawahla wasn't bad as Lydia, either.

I still prefer the BBC adaptation to the film version - albeit the film does do a better job in some respects: it hits home the very real pain the people holding these silly prejudices caused each other - but the beeb hit the spot with its lighthearted and ironic comedy of manners, exactly in tune with the original. It does look very dated now, but of course it would. It's nearly 25 years old!

Disagree. It's really good. My late mother watched it and rewatched it as a kind of therapy. And she was pretty fussy about adaptations.

To my mind by far the best two performances in the whole shebang were David Bamber's slithery, oily portrayal of Mr Collins, and the wonderful Barbara Leigh-Hunt, who was Lady Catherine to a tee. She was far superior to Judi Dench, who mostly seems to play herself. Julia Sawahla wasn't bad as Lydia, either.

I quite enjoyed Anna Chancellor as Miss Bingley in P&P 1995 too.

I would actually like to have seen Gemma Arterton who played Elizabeth in Lost In Austen do the proper role, although I wasn't a fan of Eliot Cowan's Darcy. I also hugely enjoyed Tom Riley's roguish Wickham.

As much as I love the BBC version I thought the dialogue didn't come easy to Julia Sawalha and I tensed up a bit in her scenes! I believed in the rest of the cast but Lydia was just reading the script.

There are wooden bits and wickham doesn’t work (not handsome enough) but on the while I think YANBU

Just settling down to watch the BBC one in its entirety. Curtains closed, fan on max. Can't do anything else in this heat that's my excuse!

YABU

Loved the BBC version when it came out and rewatched it recently with DD (17) who had just read the book. It was enormously pleasurable to watch it again and it remains the definitive version. Mrs Bennett was that awful. No self awareness, highly anxious (with reason) and no filter. The slow burn of Elizabeth and Darcy is exquisite.
I found the KK movie quite meh.