Andrew Davies admits to drawing on ‘stimulating’ Made in Chelsea for Jane Austen adaptation

Some of the cast from Made in Chelsea in 2021. Photograph: Channel 4 Some of the cast from Made in Chelsea in 2021. Photograph: Channel 4 Jane Austen Andrew Davies admits to drawing on ‘stimulating’ Made in Chelsea for Jane Austen adaptation Screenwriter points to parallels between two worlds while academic says some of author’s characters ‘would make perfect reality show contestants’

Prefer the Guardian on Google If Jane Austen’s novels run on closed social worlds, courtship rituals, status anxiety, gossip and relentless scrutiny of who’s coupling with who, it follows that the obvious contemporary equivalent would be reality television.

That’s according to Andrew Davies , the writer who has spent decades modernising British period dramas.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday, Davies revealed that he had been watching Made in Chelsea while working on an adaptation of Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons.