You may have heard, goodness knows I have, that Jane Austen has recently been announced as the new face of the Bank of England £10 note. Having spoken to several friends about the justification for choosing our beloved Jane over any number of other women from history who were equally important, and maybe had a wee pinch more grit/clout to their achievements, I'm still fairly happy with the choice. Yes, Jane may be a tad too middle-class, too middle-English to reflect today's population of fantastically diverse women in Britain, but then no historical female figure is going to do that, none that exists yet anyway. And I just love her books. They're funny, they're often poignant, they come from a place of experience. She wrote about what she knew and she did it really really well, bless her. Her legacy left us with one of the most beloved, colourful pictures of Georgian England and I think she deserves a turn on the rotisserie of faces appearing on British currency. Why not?
Enough fan-girl gushing.
I was re-watching Lost In Austen for the millionth time this afternoon (it's a brilliantly made four-part tv series that aired on ITV in 2008) and I got to thinking, what else had the chap who played Mr Darcy, Elliot Cowan, acted in? One short journey via a search engine revealed a gem of a short film. Now me, I love a good short film, but it was weirdly serendipitous that I should stumble upon this one. Baring in mind what I wrote about the late, great Mr Huxley's views on wonder, I encourage you to watch Hamish Jenkinson's Leo and Lisa. Maybe it was just the combination of Elliot Cowan, Thandie Newton and the fantastic Kevin Spacey but I thought this play was intense and poignant. Austen would have loved it.
Leo and Lisa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtTb2dPmFvA
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