Jane Fucking Austen

I rang Emily’s agent to tell her she had the part and then offered Petra the part of Jane. After a bit of hardball, Petra’s agent accepted a salary rather nearer to Emily’s than I hoped, meaning I would have to lower the salaries of the other actors. This helped my choice of the 3 younger sisters, waif Kara Knight as Mary, curvaceous Kate Bartlett as Kitty and top heavy Jennifer Elstone as Lydia They had all been in soaps aimed at teen audiences and had come fresh from a scantily clad photo shoot, “Meet the Bennetts” for the lads mags, whereas Emily and Petra were to appear in classier magazines nearer the release.

With all the cast in place it was time to start filming. I will not bore you with the process just that I handed the bulk of the directing over to a female colleague whilst I would concentrate on directing the porn scenes during which all the crew would be naked to make the actors feel comfortable, although it might have made it feel more like dogging without the vehicles.

There was a bit of tweaking with the ages of the characters just to make sure everything was legal with Kitty and Lydia now fraternal twins, so in this way and this way only the plot was less shocking than Jane Austen’s original. Obviously we did not shoot in sequence but this is a Mr Skin like guide to the story.

EPISODE 1: It opens with news that 2 handsome new neighbours have moved in nearby and have invited the 5 daughters to their first ball. Then one by one they bathe in a tin bath and dry themselves by the fire. The camera lingers on their intimate parts especially their anachronistic shaven snatches. We then switch to Darcy and Bingley just so the women did not switch off having an almost homo-erotic moment in their tub.

They go to the dance and Bingley and Jane fall for each other. Darcy exchanges witticisms with the fascinating Elizabeth. Here there were plenty of male crotch shots and cleavage. The twins become excited and steal a bottle of wine. Jane professes her love to Elizabeth and Jane implicitly masturbates in one bed with Elizabeth thinking of a naked Darcy doing likewise.

COMMENT: I was very keen to have the girls frig themselves with the bottle when they got home, but Petra’s agent reminded me quite forcibly that the first explicit scene had to involve her. The reviews were pleasantly surprised at the production, acting and directing standards although some thought the bath scene a trifle gratuitous. I thought that most viewers would probably spend the night fantasising about the different characters.