Author: Frances

The Amateur Austenite’s season of Emma is drawing to a close. For our final episode Rachel and I debated our preferred casting for an adaptation of Emma, based off the adaptations we’d discussed. I won’t build tension by starting with the most insignificant character, here’s my list in descending order.

Emma

The title character was always going to be a challenge. There’s something to enjoy in (almost) every depiction of her. My first Emma, Kate Beckinsale, is perfect, but she wasn’t my choice.
I cast Alicia Silverstone from Clueless (1996) because, amongst the many blonde Emma’s, the excellent facials of Romola Garai and the more subtle ones of Ana Taylor-Joy, Alicia portrays an innocence in Cher’s character that makes you love her and believe any nastiness is unintentional.

Knightley

Who to cast for Emma’s love interest? Perhaps the ageless Paul Rudd to match Alicia Silverstone. When you think about it, the age difference doesn’t seem so bad when the guy never looks any older. On the other end of the spectrum John Carson (Emma 1972) with his grey hair was tempting too.
Instead I took another swing for a modern adaptation and chose Angela Wong Carbone, the lesbian Jordan Knightley, from the webseries The Emma Agenda. I’m a sucker for a masc lesbian, this one is soft masc but I’d love to see her in a suit. There’s something so caring in Knightley allowing Emma to realise her own sexuality, despite instructing her in other areas.

Harriet

It was essential to have a Harriet that’s prettier than Emma, it’s literally in the novel. My choice may be predicated that this Harriet was prettier than her Emma.
I cast Debbie Bowen from the 1972 Emma. She is appropriately beautiful and there’s a simplicity to her Harriet that, with another performer, could have easily tipped into stupidity.

Mr Woodhouse

Emma’s father is an important presence in the novel or any adaptation but I’m not sure whether who plays him makes much of a difference (feel free to argue with me). None of the actors stood out to me.
Again I went off script and chose the Mr Woodhouse from Murder at Donwell Abbey (novel by Vanessa Kelly), because he is engaged to Miss Bates. It makes up for the rude comment in the 1972 version, treated as a joke by everyone, asking if Miss Bates would be the next person to marry.

Miss Bates

And what of Mr Woodhouse’s bride to be you ask? Tamsin Greig portrayed a lovely sad Miss Bates which unfortunately is very different to her character in the novel, Miss Bates is invariably happy (which is why Boxhill is such a gut kick). I want her to do more Austen.
My choice for Miss Bates was always going to be Miranda Hart (Emma 2020). How could it not be?? How she manages to not steal every scene is a mystery to me. At the time of recording I’d recently finished her I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You and I think I might be a little obsessed. Rachel and I long ago decided we’d love to see Miranda Hart play almost any Austen character, or indeed every Austen character.

Jane Fairfax

The guiding principle for me in choosing the actress to portray Jane was elegance. It’s mentioned so often in Emma’s description of her, it cannot be avoided. The two actresses I was choosing between are not only beautiful, but have an innate elegance that speaks volumes while their character is silent.
It was the battle of the 1996 Jane’s; Polly Walker and Olivia Williams. Eventually I settled on Polly Walker because she’s almost unrecognisable as Lady Featherington in Bridgerton, a woman who confidently wields her power and wears flashy colours, someone for Jane Fairfax to aspire to. Jane is pushed by the tide of others opinions, not so Lady Featherington.

Frank Churchill

Jane deserves a better man than Frank Churchill for her husband, so I was careful not to select someone who gave manipulative vibes. My Frank just had to be hot and charming.
Prior to recording with Rachel I had whittled it down to two candidates; Rupert Evans (2009) and Raymond Coulthard (1996 ITV). During our conversation I settled on the latter, the scene where Emma imagines him stepping out of the painting cannot be beaten.

Mrs Weston

Franks stepmother and Emma’s friend / governess had to feel motherly.
I cast Samantha Bond (1996 ITV), probably because I struggle to picture the other actresses who played the role so obviously they didn’t leave a lasting impression. Samantha was also Maria Bertram / Rushworth in the 1983 Mansfield Park. What if Miss Taylor were Maria Bertram in disguise, hiding from her torrid past? She deserves a redemption and a man who will truly love her.

Mr Weston

Mr Weston exists like Mr Vernon in Lady Susan; he “lived only to do whatever he was desired.” He is there to give Mrs Weston a home and the love she deserves, to be Frank’s father and throw parties.
To me Mr Weston is an insignificant character, in Sam Brooks Em he never appears on stage and that is how I would have him in my adaptation also.

Mrs Elton

Perhaps Mrs Elton should go further up the list since I bothered to cast her but you could argue she’s not as essential to the story as other characters. There were so many excellent Mrs Elton’s; the looking down her nose-ness of Fiona Walker (1972) and Tanya Reynolds; the annoyance of Juliet Stevenson (1996) and Lucy Robinson (1996 ITV), even the strangely compelling hipster Allie Hawkins (Darcie DeLong) from The Emma Project.
I cast Christina Cole (2009) as my Mrs Elton. She’s Emma’s equal; doesn’t seem older like some of the others, just as attractive, plus the necessary haughty with a side of gaudy. I wonder why this actress was also chosen to play Miss Bingley (a lesbian one!), whether she enjoys portraying those type of characters or it’s something casting directors see in her because I’d also love to see her in Emma’s role.

Mr Elton

Last, and certainly least, we come to Mr Elton. This character can give a lot of ick for the way he behaves; his fawning over Emma, his refusal to hear her no, his dismissal of Harriet and how he parades his wife around. It’s easy to compare him to other slimy clergymen like Mr Collins but the essential fact of the character is that he’s hot. All the girls around Highbury are gagging for him and that’s why he thinks he’s got a shot with Emma. Another hot clergyman is Edmund Bertram from Mansfield Park, so hot that he has Mary Crawford questioning herself and considering marrying a mere clergyman.
I cast Blake Ritson as Mr Elton, it was a lovely coincidence that he stays with his wife from the 2009 Emma. He can sometimes give an ick but we’ve seen him hot as Edmund in the 2007 Mansfield Park (when they deal to his fringe). Let Mr Elton be hot! I amused myself imaging that he was in fact Edmund living under an assumed name. He and Mrs Weston (Maria from a different adaptation) are siblings who are forced to pretend to be strangers, just to add another layer to the story.

If you enjoyed this you might like listening to The Amateur Austenite or perhaps you’d like to debate the casting with me directly?

Video and audio from Pride and Prejudice 1995

Featuring a (slightly modified) aromantic pride design you can get on a bunch of different items over on Redbubble

I spoke on this topic at an Austen meeting, you can read it here

When the Gardiners meet Mr Darcy in the company of Lizzy at Pemberley she is relieved to have “some relations for whom there was no need to blush.” Swiftly Mr Darcy brings his sister to meet them and the Gardiners recognise “that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece.” During the visit they determine that Mr Darcy “was overflowing with admiration” for Lizzy, concluding with “it was evident that he was very much in love with her.”

Mrs Gardiner wishes to know the full truth of the matter especially when it appears Lizzy has told Mr Darcy about Lydia’s elopement (a circumstance they would try to keep as secret as possible).

Oh, that I knew how it was!

Both Gardiners consider there was some sort of understanding between the two or “would never have yielded” to allow Mr Darcy to organise Lydia’s marriage.

Video from Pride and Prejudice 1995 / Audio from Cassandra by Taylor Swift

The last line of the novel is devoted to the Gardiners:

With the Gardiners they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

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On a recent episode of The Amateur Austenite I spoke about my theory of Schrodinger’s Rapist in relation to Mr Elton and Mr Collins. Already similar characters as they are male, clergymen, full of themselves, and determined to do well, when they propose to the protagonist of the novel in which they exist they are both revealed to be what I call Schrodinger’s rapists.

SHELDON: … in 1935, Erwin Schrodinger, in an attempt to explain the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, he proposed an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a sealed vial of poison that will break open at a random time. Now, since no-one knows when or if the poison has been released, until the box is opened, the cat can be thought of as both alive and dead.

PENNY: I’m sorry, I don’t get the point.

SHELDON: Well of course you don’t get it, I haven’t made it yet. You’d have to be psychic to get it, and there’s no such thing as psychic.

PENNY: Sheldon, what’s the point?

SHELDON: Just like Schrodinger’s Cat, your potential relationship with Leonard right now can be thought of as both good and bad. It is only by opening the box that you’ll find out which it is.

The Big Bang Theory, Series 01 Episode 17 “The Tangerine Factor”

This interaction from The Big Bang Theory sitcom was my introduction to Schrodinger’s Cat. But I had vague recollections of a similar story in Anne of Green Gables (actually a sequel called Anne of the Island, which I didn’t recollect reading). Anne and her friends attempt to gas a stray cat, but it doesn’t go to plan.

..when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay leap to Anne’s shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately. Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.

“Here’s a knot hole in the box,” groaned Phil. “I never saw it. That’s why he didn’t die..”

Till they take the box off the cat, they assume that the cat is dead. It’s been enclosed in a box with gas, surely it will die. But they hadn’t considered all the circumstances, they didn’t know about the knot hole in the box.

What does that cat have to do with Mr Elton and Mr Collins?

Like Sheldon explains to Penny, a potential relationship “can be thought of as both good and bad.” You could say the same about men, we don’t know how they’ll react till they’re in the situation.

Rape is non-consensual sexual contact. Would Mr Elton or Mr Collins go so far? We don’t know. What we do know, is that they both refuse to hear no, when quite clearly spoken by the woman they are proposing to.

Emma’s situation is particularly precarious, trapped alone in a carriage with a man who refuses to listen to her then acts like a petulant child when she finally gets through to him. Lizzy at least is in her parents home which, despite her mothers wishes, offers some level of protection.

Had Pride and Prejudice and Emma been written by another author these scenes may have developed very differently. Consider Tess of the d’Urbervilles a novel about a woman being blamed, scorned and ostracised for a physical act she did not consent to. That is literally the whole point of the book, I still can’t understand why we’d read it (I read it for university), let alone consider it a classic.

Perhaps Austen is commenting on clergymen, supposed to be pillars of society but more interested in aggrandising themselves. Or she may be reminding us that we can’t trust even those who have a direct line to god (sadly, a lesson many learned).

What is evident throughout her writing is her awareness of the plight of women. Maria Rushworth is cast out of society for her affair but Mr Crawford can walk into any drawing room he likes. Lydia Bennet would have been ruined, and her family along with her, had Mr Darcy not paid Wickham to marry her. Willoughby doesn’t provide for his child (to a woman who is a child herself) and is free to marry a wealthy woman, casting aside Marianne Dashwood, another young woman he seduced (though thankfully not physically).

Mr Collins and Mr Elton highlight that men may not ask for consent, they may turn a deaf ear to a refusal. In different circumstances, instead of being rejected suitors, could they become rapists?

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