Get the right Darcy (and make him dye his hair)

Jane Austen’s characters aren’t described very precisely in terms of hair colour or eyes – it’s just something that comes into one’s head. Colin Firth is still the definitive Mr Darcy. We had an idea that Darcy would be dark, very dark, with curly hair. I always have a very clear picture in my head. So it’s often a bit of a surprise when somebody gets cast, and Colin Firth was kind of fair to ginger. He dyed his hair specifically for that part, and has stuck with it ever since! Modesty should stop me from saying this, but I think Pride and Prejudice is the benchmark Jane Austen adaptation.

Keep the Austen wit

I’ve got a great affection and admiration for that very old Pride and Prejudice with Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. Olivier is pretty terrible in it, and Garson is much too old, but it’s a genius screenplay by Aldous Huxley. The whole thing was played with a great deal of wit and panache. Some productions don’t take enough notice of the fact that Jane Austen was a great comedian.

Don’t chop too much out

The Olivier one managed to tell the whole story in under an hour and a half. Pride and Prejudice really ought to need much more than an hour and a half, but somehow they pulled it off with the Olivier one. Unlike the recent film with Keira Knightley [in 2005], which was very vivid and cinematic but they only managed to get half the story in. With Pride and Prejudice, we had six episodes to tell the story. It fits perfectly.

Stay away from Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is a terribly hard one to do. In the book, the heroine Fanny Price is timid and dull – and so is her admirer Edmond. It was almost like Austen was experimenting – giving all the virtue to the dullest, most boring characters, while making the villains enormously attractive and sexy. In the very recent Mansfield Park Billie Piper was miscast as Fanny. Turning Fanny into a bit of a tomboy was a big mistake. But there was one in 1983 with Sylvestra Le Touzel as Fanny Price, and she was the only good one I’ve seen.

Use handheld cameras

The Persuasion directed by Roger Michell [in 1995] with Ciarán Hinds in it was a very good one. It looked filmy, used a lot of handheld cameras, and it also had a very, very intelligent script and terrific performances. I think that stays with me the most of all the adaptations. It came out in the same year as my Pride and Prejudice.

Feel free to add in the men

What I’ve tended to do, which some people think is a bit of a liberty, is to invent scenes to show what the men were doing. Jane Austen would never write scenes for a man on his own, or two men together. But it’s implied – like the duel scene we’ve got in our

Sense and Sensibility. Andrew Davies’s Sense and Sensibility with Charity Wakefield (below), New Year’s Day, BBC One, 9.10pm; Scotland, Jan 4, 9pm

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