Lost in Austen (ITV1)

Oh I’m so pleased . . . and if I add “Mr Bennet” to the end of that sentence it’s because a four-week exposure to Lost in Austen has left me, like Amanda Price (the wonderful Jemima Rooper) taking on all the “prithees” and “kind sirs” from the 18th century. Try it in your local Costcutter: “Sir, I believe that Fairy Liquid is most heinously overpriced. We shall proceed at once to the Co-op.”

For much of the last episode you may, like me, have been pondering how on earth were they going to resolve the biggest knot — presuming they would somehow unfiddle all the others — of Mr Darcy and Amanda Price being better suited to each other than Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, the couple Jane Austen yoked together in Pride and Prejudice and the couple Amanda was desperately trying to get back together as her time- travelling adventure unfolded.

But Guy Andrews (scriptwriter) and Dan Zeff (director) followed the relationships that Andrews had set askew through to their conclusion. We had left Elizabeth (Gemma Arterton) in Hammersmith 2008 in episode one and one of the failings of the drama seemed to be her invisibility. So while Amanda tussled with Austen-era social mores and tried to keep on track the events and relationships in the world of her fictional touchstone (and failing), we had no idea what the actual heroine of Pride and Prejudice was making of the 21st century.

She had become a nanny. In a key moment Amanda in period high-waisted dress appeared on a Hammersmith street after an emotional moment with Mr Darcy, having discovered another portal through time. Her present-day boyfriend was nonplussed and when he went to punch Mr Darcy (who had followed Amanda), was equally surprised to be told that his opponent would only strike a friend and even then only with his consent.

This was wonderfully funny, sad and stirring: the music had me welling up, Amanda’s love for Darcy had me welling up; and the seeming impossibility of Jane and Bingley finding happiness almost set me over the edge, especially when he wounded lovely Mr Bennet in a duel. Did you cheer when Mrs Bennet (Alex Kingston, a bustling flurry of sighs and tears, a high class Miss Piggy), tore into Lady Catherine de Bourgh (a demonically acidic Lindsay Duncan). For so long Mrs Bennet had tried to make herself socially acceptable. Now she told Lady Catherine to get out of her house: “You are a common bully and you cheat at cards.”

How clever to turn the time travel question to a radically conclusive purpose and for Andrews to discover that by recasting Pride and Prejudice, he could — convincingly and with feeling — change its central romance. Elizabeth, acquainted with 21st-century London life, went back there (“I’m microbiotic now . . . My employers are most concerned by the size of their footprint”). Andrews could so easily have lathered up the culture-clash laughs, but was sharp and clever enough to have Darcy unintentionally veer near to racism without knowing it (calling a black man a “negro” on the bus) and to have Amanda note, disbelievingly, that “Elizabeth Bennet is lending me her mobile”.

Of course, love conquered all. Amanda Price and Elizabeth Bennet swapped times and destinies. The sexual politics of this were momentarily unsettling — the worrying prospect of one’s fictional romantic hero being more fulfilling ultimately than anyone in present-day reality — but then I had another chocolate and marvelled at the sharp yet frothy, subversive-yet-utterly-respectful-of-Austen brilliance of it all. Those performances and the music zinged. It all zinged. Oh Mr Bennet, might we see you again perhaps in a longer-formatted series, or might that be a recipe for disaster? Was this a treat best served with brevity? Did anyone else check the cupboard in their bathroom afterwards . . . just in case?

The Family (Channel 4)

After that, The Family was a massive downer. The first depressing episode, was about one daughter’s unpleasant behaviour, and now came another hour of slamming and sulking care of daughter number two, who keeps being sold — mistakenly, it would seem — at the top of every show as the sensible one. She wanted to leave school. Her mother Jane understood, but sadly volcanic dad Simon wasn’t so happy.

Another hour of rumbling anger, flouncing exits and sofa-based mood swings unfolded. I felt keenly for the cat, which kept getting roughly ejected from its perch. The Hugheses are just so bloody, terminally miserable. Their conflict-fest is supposedly “reality”, whereas in truth the programme is as edited and selective as any reality show. It’s interesting that after 51 minutes of “I hate you”, “I’m not going to do that”, moan, moan, freaking moan, the end has been the same in each of the episodes: a happy make-up and mend session, some jolly music. Do they ever smile? Do they really live in a state of perpetual crisis? Do they enjoy living like that? Can someone please redecorate that drab living room with its hideous L-shaped sofa?

tim.teeman@thetimes.co.uk

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