Hello Johanna and welcome at My Jane Austen Book Club! First of all congratulations on your excellent work in this extraordinary adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. While reading about your show, “Pride and Prejudice with Two
Actors”, I got really curious. How’s that possible? Two
actors, twenty-one characters? Does that mean Nick, the other half of Two Bit Classics, plays both Darcy and Mr Collins, and Wickham
and Mr Bennet as well? And you play all the five Bennet sisters, Mrs
Bennet, Lady De Bourgh, Charlotte Lucas? That’s amazing. That must be a real
enterprise!
Between us, Nick and I bring 21 characters to life, but Nick doesn't
play all the men and I don't play all the women. There are so many
double-acts in the book and we wanted to stretch our acting muscles to the max
and have 2 of us bring them all go life between us. We also want to
invite the audience into Austen's wonderful world by encouraging them to
imagine and invent with us. Our costumes and set are wonderfully creative and
adaptable and we love the challenge of our nightly Austen dance!
Why Jane Austen and not Dickens or the Brontes?
I certainly wouldn't rule out either Dickens or the Brontes in the
future, but Pride and Prejudice is one of my favourite novels, it has this
iconic status and all the characters are so famous it seemed like a natural
starting point for a new company.
