The Other Bennet Sister starts tonight on BBC1 8pm

[IwantToRetire]

Seemingly unremarkable and often overlooked, Mary Bennet longs to win her family’s approval.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002qkp3

Is this going to be a spoof or some sort of spin off ?

2nd episode tonight at 8:30

Couldn't see a thread so hope this isn't a duplicate!

I thought the other sisters were deliberately downplayed as a reversal of P and P.

Watched the first today with Dd1 we loved it .

It seems like they have cut out a huge chunk out of the book and changed Mary’s status with the Gardeners.

I watched the first three episodes last night and enjoyed it very much. I hope Mary ends up with Mr. Sparrow. I'm glad there was the touching scene with Elizabeth where she apologised and comforted Mary - she was coming across as quite unlikeable in this, through perhaps that's the point. There was very little kindness towards Mary displayed by anyone in P&P. Lovely to see Lucy Briars as Mrs. Hill.

Ella Bruccoleri is very good. She reminds me a bit of Sylvestra Le Touzel's excellent portrayal of Fanny Price in the 1980's Mansfield Park.

Can't wait for the next episodes.

I think AS showed how desperate she was to get her daughters married to ensure their (and her?) future.

That no one else seemed to really understand or care how desperate they situation could be.

Realistically did Lizzie have the luxury of refusing Mr Collins?

I suppose Mr Bennet might only have been late 40s so his death might seem a good way off!

Yes, always thought Mr Bennet is probably cast too old in the adaptations but it works. He'd more likely be 50ish at the most surely and Mrs Bennet mid forties but suppose larger age gaps weren't uncommon.

Loving this so much! Love Mary in this, I recently watched a YouTube video which was analysing all the Jane Austen characters within the lens of neurodiversity and it made good arguments for Mary, Mr Collins and also Mr Darcy as being autistic which is very convincing! It was sweet that Lucy Briers was in it too, and she was also in the movie of pride and prejudice as the housekeeper at Pemberley IIRC.

ETA the creator also argued that Jane herself was autistic which is definitely a thought!

I loved it too. Binge watched it and am dying to know what happens.
The actress playing Mary is adorable.
I am hoping she needs new glasses at some point iyswim.

The Bennet sisters are supposed to be between the ages of 15-22 with Mary being around 18. In this drama Mary looks about 30 which is hardly a surprise given the actress is 36!

In the book yes, but it's clear a few years have passed by the time this series gets going. Charlotte Lucas has a baby early on.

Not really. Even Darcy in P and P says that in order to be considered accomplished a woman ‘must improve her mind by extensive reading’.

I have watched all the available episodes and found them delightful. I feel duty bound to tell topcat that there are several black and Asian actors in the cast so she shouldn’t bother watching it. She would be better off sitting in a bunker somewhere so as to be spared the trauma.

I binged it all and really enjoyed it. It’s the perfect antidote to so much that’s on TV at the moment. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the way the ‘new’ dresses didn’t fit. Surely they would have been better made? Everyone else’s dresses are perfect fitting, Mary’s don’t fit and the style is off. Perhaps it’s intentional to keep her looking dowdy. I haven’t read the book but would have thought that the dowdiness is in Mary’s head. Her family have treated her appallingly. A properly fitted frock and a decent hair arrangement would work wonders!

I thought this series is set at exactly the same time as P&P but viewed and narrated from the perspective of Mary rather then Lizzie.

You don’t need to record it. You can just watch it on demand for free, unless your TV doesn’t have access to apps? It’ll be on BBC iPlayer.

It starts there but all the sisters including kitty get married and leave fairly early on, so it passes the era covered by pride and prejudice pretty early.

Mr Darcy was not intended to represent the average man of that time though, he was much more forward thinking. Women were not generally encouraged to be particularly academic to a higher level as their focus was to be on their home, families and society connections. It was desired to have skills such as music, art and languages to demonstrate wealth and refinement but not too much in the way of opinions. Education for girls in high society was very much tailored towards becoming a charming young woman who would attract a suitable husband. Mrs Bennet saw no value in Mary's academia as she was brought up to believe that only beauty and charm had any worth for women in society.

He father reckoned Mary was as daft as the others but in a slightly different way. Something about the older two girls having 'two, I may say three, very silly sisters'.

The dyed hair/wigs of some of the sisters is distracting me… have started the book so hopefully will finish it before the last episodes land. I’ve just stayed episode 3.

confused by Mrs B ending up at Netherfield, at rhe end of P&P it clearly says that being too close to her mother is a bit awkward for Mr and Mrs Bingley so they going to somewhere closer to Pemberley.

the whole thing feels like a tribute to the mid 90s version. Which is fine by me. Hope there is a pond scene :)

I struggled with the new dresses too, they looked like they were pulled from the local am-dram costume cupboard. She used her Aunt's dressmaker so surely her dresses should be just as lovely, or at least fit?

Other than that it's a great show, I binged it in two days

Yes, Benjamin Whitrow was nearly 60.

I suppose Mr Bennet could have been a bit older than Mrs Bennet but I get the feeling he was young & in lust when they married!

Happy to be corrected.

I think large age gaps were common, especially amongst the class where younger brothers went off to make their fortune at sea and then came back to find a young wife to bear them an heir or two. Like on Persuasion. And of course in S&S, Colonel Brandon is old enough to be Marianne’s father and I’ve always suspected Knightley of being significantly older than Emma, which makes his interest in her double creepy by modern standards as he talks about observing her from such a young age.

I’ve always suspected Knightley of being significantly older than Emma,

I think Emma is 21 & Knightley mid 30s at least?

He’s 38.

There’s no indication whatsoever that Darcy is at all progressive or forward-thinking. He’s talking purely about women being required to have read enough in order to count as ‘accomplished’ , not because they are in any way scholarly or academically-minded.

Mary Bennet, Austen tells us, ‘in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments’ — she’s not particularly academically-minded, either, any more than her sisters, and we’re told she has neither ‘genius nor taste’, but she knows she can’t compete in terms of attractiveness so she works harder at music and other accomplishments to make up for it.

At the end of the novel, when the others have all left home, she spends far more time mixing with society than pursuing accomplishments because her mother won’t receive or pay visits alone, but Mr Bennet thinks she actually enjoys it once she’s not getting continual comparisons between her plainness and her pretty sisters.

(I’ve always wondered why, while Kitty spends most of her time living with Jane and Elizabeth after the end of the novel, why Mary doesn’t seem to? J and E might not want to leave their mother entirely alone, but surely poor Mary could occasionally have stayed with them while Kitty was at Longbourn, rather than being stuck with being the dutiful spinster daughter at home? )