It’s Little Women, not Loose Women

JO MARCH from Little Women was my girlhood heroine from a muchloved book. She was an outspoken tomboy with a passion for writing, based on the personality of author Louisa May Alcott herself.

‘I mean to astonish you all one day,’ Jo once decreed, in this comingof-age novel set in the American Civil War. But — mercy me! — what is this? A new BBC adaptation of the book shows my Jo in a seductively sheer, wet shift, striding out of a lake.

Call me a hypocrite, but while it might be all right for Colin Firth in Pride And Prejudice to drip about in a handsomely seductive way, this is not how I want to imagine my childhood idol!

In this all-star production — which includes Michael Gambon, Angela Lansbury and Emily Watson — Jo is played by Maya Thurman-Hawke (pictured), the daughter of A-listers Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke.

It hardly needs to be said that Maya, 19, (pictured) is an utterly ravishing young woman, as far removed from plain-faced Jo as could be. Like hiring Botticelli’s Venus to play a Cabbage Patch Doll.

Perhaps it’ll help if she puts a sensible skirt on. And a nice bonnet.