Sofa Spotlight - The Jane Austen BBC Radio Drama Collection

Audio books can take forever to listen to and can be hard to follow. These are great because there are different voices for different characters, rather than one person doing all the voices. So it’s a radio play rather than straight audio book.

I started to listen to them when I’ve had migraines. Horrible as they are, terrible as the pain is, and sick as you feel, I can handle all that, I just can’t stand the boredom. I wasn’t built for doing nothing, or using all my concentration to stop myself from throwing up.

I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent staring at the ceiling or wishing that if I could shut my eyes tighter so that I might feel a little less sick. And when it’s all over you can’t rush back into everything because you feel like you’ve had all the energy drained out of you. The one good thing is the shower at the end of it all that washes the whole thing off you. And if like me you’ve take medication you get the best sleep afterwards. Who knows if it is the medication or because the world has gone quiet now that the hammering in your head has stopped?

So when I’m lying there, too ill to move but well enough that my mind is working again, audio books are, at that moment, the best invention! 

But back to Jane Austen.

In the collection are:

•  Sense and Sensibility 

•  Pride and Prejudice

•  Emma

•  Persuasion

•  Northanger Abbey

•  Mansfield Park

Lady Susan is missing as is Love and Friendship. The thing with Austen is that you can spend all day discussing the merits of your fave or what you love most about your fave character. So if you have all day comment below and let me know your thoughts.

For me Sense and Sensibility is by far the best. Followed closely by Persuasion. What clinches it for me though is Willoughby. If you’ve not read Austen’s novels before or don’t know the stories then skip to the last paragraph. 

I love Willoughby. He is the most believable character in the collection. Even more so than Wickham. His speech to Eleanor when Marianne was ill had so much feeling in it. You could feel the tearing in Willoughby’s soul. Which is maybe why I like Sense and Sensibility so much, because the characters express so much. 

Northanger Abbey, although excellent, makes me cringe too much. It’s the kind of book that makes me want to shout at it because of the poor decisions made by the main character. Thus it doesn’t make it to the top of my list. Emma is also on the cringe part of the list because of all the interference in other people’s lives etc that goes on. Just glad it all ended well! 

Persuasion is high up there because of the brilliant portrayal of characters. I mean it cannot be denied that Austen nailed human nature in all her novels but I feel Persuasion gets overlooked and sort of lives in the shadow of Pride and Prejudice. I put forward the character of Captain Benwick as evidence for my case.

Speaking of P&P it’s about mid-way up the list for me. Yes it does have incredible lines from the Bennet’s and Darcy, but the character that stole the show for me was Mr Collins. What a guy. I remember writing an essay for my GCSEs about his marriage proposals and I, like I’m supposed to, felt so sorry for Charlotte Lucas. Sometimes I don’t think we know that we’re born. 

Mansfield Park is down the bottom of the list. Partly for cringe factors - not a fan of the Crawfords and then by association Edward. But I do find the backstory interesting, or rather the social context of the slave trade that I missed picking up on when I read these in my teens.

Anyway would definitely recommend listening to these. If you’ve read the books they are great just to enjoy the stories again. And if Austen has intimidated you and put you off reading them then let the tones of David Tennent and Benedict Cumberbatch bring them to life.