DIP DIP HOORAY! BBC SHOW AT 25 IS STILL THEIR... Pride ’ n joy !
THIS month marks the 25th anniversary of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
The 1995 hit, based on Jane Austen’s classic novel, starred Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle and Alison Steadman, and drew around 11 million viewers every week.
But how much do you know about the saga which followed the relationship between the spirited Elizabeth Bennet and the rich and proud Mr Darcy? Here presents 12 fascinating facts…
The role of Mr Darcy made Colin Firth a household name but he almost turned it down, while some BBC executives said they didn’t think he was “good- looking” enough to play the male lead.
Firth was eventually sold after reading just five pages of writer Andrew Davies’s script. Davies decided to write the screenplay after being told Pride and Prejudice was about “sex, money and social climbing”. The scene where Mr Darcy takes a dip in a lake while wearing a white shirt was voted one of the “most unforgettable moments” in British TV history and made Firth a sex symbol – but it wasn’t in Jane Austen’s book. Firth was meant to be nude in the scene but the BBC wouldn’t allow it. The producers then considered having him wear underwear, but that wouldn’t have been historically accurate.
In 2016, the famous shirt was in an exhibition in Washington DC. Just labelled “white shirt,” it was the focal point of the Will & Jane: Shakespeare, Austen, and the Cult of Celebrity display. Elizabeth Bennet is the quintessential English heroine but Jennifer Ehle, who played her, is from North
Carolina in the US. She had to learn to do an English accent for the role and her efforts won a BAFTA.
Firth and Ehle started dating while filming the series and were together for a year. But Firth said this made the production very difficult. Susannah Harker, who played Jane Bennet, is the daughter of actress Polly Adams, who played the same role in a 1967 BBC adaptation.
Part of the series’ success was down to the fact it was shot at grand stately homes rather than in a studio. But as these were near military bases, it meant regular, very un- Georgian planes in the skies.
NON DRIP: Colin Firth in the famous wet shirt scene
It has even inspired art – in 2013, three artists made a 12ft fibreglass statue of Mr Darcy in his wet shirt, while Michelle Wibowo baked a 6ft Darcy cake. A massive 40% of the UK population tuned in to watch the final episode of Pride and Prejudice in October 1995, and the series has gone on to inspire Jane Austen fan fiction and even the 2016 horror film Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.
The role of Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones’s Diary films was based on Mr Darcy – and was played by Firth in three movies.