Jane Austen Archives - North West End UK

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

6Mar

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

North West

Northanger Abbey – Octagon Theatre, Bolton

The first months of 2024 have brought a plethora of fresh writing to our region and following hot on the heels of new works by Jim Cartwright, Emma Rice and Phoebe Eclair-Powell comes an absolute gem by a little known writer from Hampshire called Jane Austen… Of course, we know that Northanger Abbey was published over two centuries ago, and Austen is so famous that she adorns every ten pound note in England, but this radical and stylised adaptation from Zoe Cooper allows us to see the story as almost freshly minted, the result is a startlingly fresh and inventive take on the mores of Regency England. Subverting Austen’s own omniscient narrator, we hear the story from the perspective of Cath (Rebecca Banatvala), reenacting her life and recent adventures with Iz (AK Golding) and Hen (Sam...

Persuasion – Rose Theatre

A fresh perspective on Jane Austen’s adaptation, Persuasion with WAP, Frank Ocean and a foam party. This production follows Anne and her desperate sisters on their conquest for love but as their 30s approach, they worry about compatibility and finding a match that will ensure a long and easy life. However, as with classical romance there is always one who suffers in the quest for true connection, Anne (Sasha Frost) and her desperate love for Captain Wentworth (Fred Fergus) are knocked together like conkers as they try to rekindle a love they once had. We are very much in an age of reflection and in result, seeing the return of a lot of classical texts. It’s refreshing more so to be seeing new interpretations and a wittier perspective on the structures we enforced upon ourselves. It spe...

Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) – Royal Lyceum Theatre

For anyone who battled through Jane Austen’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ at school - or university - this play is for YOU. If you spent those hours-you’ll-never-get-back watching one of the film or TV adaptations, hurling abuse and shouting increasingly colourful language into the mouths of the characters, this script is for YOU. To witness this irritating novel set about with such irreverent relish was a filthy pleasure. Never mind what legions of readers and viewers have wanted to tell Lady Catherine De Bourgh to do, this play - via The Best Ever Mr Darcy - finally does it. How? First off, we’re introduced, not to Mr and Mrs Bennet, but to six of Longbourn’s servants clad in white utility smocks and DM’s (Dear Young Team, that’s a brand of footwear, not a form of soshal meeja); the st...