Judging a Darcy is like judging a fruit cake. He has to be easy on the eye, crusty on the outside, soft in the middle, extraordinarily rich, and not particularly fond of dancing. OK, the simile doesn’t quite stretch but you get the idea.

Here are the nominations:

William Darcy from Bride and Prejudice (2003) – Martin Henderson

William Darcy played by Martin Henderson

Bio: An American hotelier who arrives in India harboring stereotypes of the local culture, akin to Jane Austen’s Darcy’s preconceptions about life outside elite society.
Positives: Classic Hollywood good looks.
Negatives: Perhaps a little too “new-money” for Darcy. The real Darcy wasn’t merely wealthy, of course, and as a gentleman wasn’t one for holding down a job either, whereas this chap is never off his laptop.

Will Darcy from Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy (2003) – Orlando Seal

Will Darcy played by Orlando Seal

Bio: A British publisher who receives a manuscript from a certain Elizabeth Bennet, he is initially contemptuous of Miss Bennet’s social circle, before inevitably love begins to blossom.
Positives: His Englishness definitely helps him to appear arrogant and superior at the beginning (I can say this, I’m English. Americans, please don’t leave comments agreeing with me!”)
Negatives: He featured in an episode of the comedy series ‘The IT Crowd,’ in which his name was Peter File. See the YouTube clip below. It’s just impossible to take him seriously after this. In Pride and Prejudice; A Latter Day Comedy, he also has the misfortune to be in a pretty bad film, which doesn’t help matters.

Mark Darcy from Bridget Jones Diary (2001) – Colin Firth

Mark Darcy played by Colin Firth

Bio: Mark Darcy is a stuffy, yet bizarrely well-connected human rights lawyer, who bumps into Bridget at a new year party and eventually becomes a rival of Daniel Cleaver, Bridget’s boss, for her affections.
Positives: He has a natural advantage of course, being for many people the “real” Darcy due to his fabulous performance in the BBC’s 1995 series. His turn in Bridget Jones, in which his head appears to be a perfectly good shape (regardless of Miss Amanda Price’s allegations) is very different of course, but still very Darcy.
Negatives: He is, of course, as socially awkward as Jane Austen’s Fitzwilliam Darcy but lacks the sheltered, aristocratic upbringing in comparison with Bridget. In fact, everyone in the movie is more or less equally posh.

Fitzwilliam Darcy in Lost in Austen (2008) – Elliot Cowan

Elliot Cowan as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy

Bio: Cowan plays the ‘real’ Darcy from the book, of course, but his life is knocked off course by the arrival of Miss Amanda Price from modern-day London. Amanda seeks to bring Elizabeth and Darcy together, yet slowly the two become drawn to one another instead.
Positives: Cowan is suitably tall, handsome and yet superficially ‘toxic,’ then turns on the charm rather delightfully as the series progresses.
Negatives: Perhaps a little angrier and pricklier than Darcy as portrayed in the book and the major adaptations. Not just cold or insensitive at the beginning, this Darcy is baldly unpleasant.

My Two Cents

My winner has to be Elliot Cowan from Lost in Austen. He takes Darcy to the extremes of insufferability and affability, and somehow binds it all together into one consistent character. He is handsome, of course, but not in a pretty-boy way, and has great chemistry with Miss Amanda Price.

What do you think? Aside from the Darcys of the major, straight adaptations, who is the best of the rest?

A 1980 adaptation fan video set to Chopin

This romantic video makes the 1980 version look quite cinematic, with lots of lingering looks, smiles and of course stiff upper-lips from David Rintoul.

Pride & Prejudice – Harry Potter Style

A very cleverly edited Pride and Prejudice trailer using video footage of Harry Potter.

Pride and Prejudice – She’s Like The Wind

We have featured this video already on this site, but in view of Patrick Swayze’s tragic passing it seems right to remember once again at his most awesome. Here is Pride and Prejudice 2005 set to Swayze’s ‘She’s Like the Wind’ from Dirty Dancing.

Pride and Prejudice Trailer Spoof

I don’t want to write too much about this for fear of spoiling the quite horrible surprise! This is my personal favorite…

Lost In Austen- Amanda & Darcy- She’s A Lady

So Miss Amanda Price of Hammersmith might have had Jane Austen spinning in her grave ‘like a cat in a tumble-dryer,’ but she still won the heart of Mr Darcy in Lost in Austen with her radical manners and quirky modern ways. Here is Lost in Austen set to Tom Jones’ ‘She’s a Lady.’

So there we have it. Delightfully absurd and quite absurdly delightful. Once again, please let us know about your favorites too. Also, please don’t forget to check out Mitchell and Webb’s Disco Darcy sketch, entirely unrivaled in its ridiculousnesses, for a guaranteed giggle.

Here are My Pride and Prejudice’s all time top 10 pictures of the beautiful, kind and good-natured Jane Bennet.In no particular order and from all the major screen and TV adaptations we have Rosamund Pike (2005), Susannah Harker (1995), Sabina Franklyn (1980), Maureen O’Sullivan(1940) and Morven Christie (lost in Austen).

Allerton Castle (Rosings)

Allerton Castle, near the town of Knaresborough in north Yorkshire, plays Lady Catherine’s lair in Lost in Austen, complete with the ‘clasping buttresses’ so admired by Mr Collins. Set in 200 acres of parkland and formal gardens, not to mention the stunning north Yorkshire countryside, the present house was built between 1848 and 1854. The building is available for almost every occasion: weddings, private parties, corporate events, and also of course the filming of irreverent Pride and Prejudice spin-off TV series.

Allerton Castle is the ancestral home of Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton. (I had to re-read this several times to establish that this is only one person!) The ceiling of the Great Hall, which is the entrance to Allerton Castle, is over 80ft high, making it one of the grandest rooms in England.

According to the website, the bedrooms in the house are said to be ‘perfect for your wedding night,’ a statement which they follow with a mischievous three dots…

Harewood House (Pemberley)

Harewood House, also in north Yorkshire, is the home of the Earl and Countess of Harewood (two people!) In 2009, the house won Enjoy England’s Large Visitor Attraction of the Year, so expect plenty to do if you have the good fortune to be able to visit the property. The building was constructed in the middle of the 18th Century, from the ill-gotten proceeds of the West Indian sugar trade, and sits in a landscape garden designed by ‘Capability’ Brown.

You can tour the house for its interiors, galleries and tearooms, and also visit the kitchen and servants’ quarters under the stairs. Outside, there is a bird garden, containing over 100 species including penguins, and an obligatory adventure playground for kids.

There is also an impressive array of events, from drive-in movies to a visit from the Moscow State Circus, and regular exhibitions. Weddings are also possible for the financially more generously endowed. The standard entry price for adults is eleven pounds.

Here is the website.

Bramham Biggin (Longbourn)

Bramham Biggin, a house on the grand Bramham Park estate, plays Longbourn in Lost in Austen. The site had been used since medieval times as a monestry and has housed various families, including that of MP Charles Allenson. In the 19th Century the house was used as a college, and then returned to its former use as a residence. At the time of the filming of Lost in Austen, the house was completely stripped bare, given the filmmakers maximum freedom to use the interiors as they wished.

For details of the estate, see the website link under Netherfield (Bramham Park.)

Bramham Park (Netherfield)

Bramham Park is another house laid open to visitors and boasting a range of attractions and events. The West Yorkshire house was built in 1698 and its landscape was laid over the following 30 years by the appropriately entitled 1st Lord Bingley, Robert Benson. The focus of the property is the garden. ‘Bramham Park is a grand and unusual house,” wrote historian Nikolaus Pevsner, cited on the house’s website, ‘but its gardens are grander and even more unusual.’

It was designed as a summer residence only, which explains its relatively modest size in relation to the spectacular grounds. The pond at Bramham Park is also used for the Pemberley lake scene with Amanda and Mr Darcy.

To visit, you’ll need to make an appointment but it’s only four pounds for adults and two pounds for concession tickets.

Here is Bramham Park’s website.

Your stately friend,

Lizzy

A cad and a rake, or just misunderstood?

However, Wickham did extort the equivalent of more than one million dollars from Mr Darcy, which he gambled and otherwise wasted away. He also lied to anyone who would listen about his dealings with the gentleman. When the militia moved to Brighton, Wickham left with another mountain of debt, having conned his way into credit agreements with various traders.

Mr Wickham’s decision to elope with Lydia was a strange one. The Bennets have no money, so his motivation could not have been financial. He had no intention of marrying Lydia, it is said, so perhaps he was being led purely by his sexual desire. If so, then why run off with a gentleman’s daughter? Less troublesome encounters would surely have been possible for an officer stationed in a famous ‘gay bathing place’ like Brighton?

In any case, at the end of the book, where Jane Austen describes the future of Lydia and Mr Wickham, there is little to redeem his character. They stay together of course, but in time become bored with one another. They live a restless life, never able to live to their means and dependent on the charity of Mrs Elizabeth Darcy.

So while it’s a nice idea in Lost in Austen, in the novel the cracks of ambiguity in Wickham’s moral character are very slight indeed. I do find his elopement with Lydia a little hard to rationalize, but overall he’s pretty much a straightforward 19th Century villain – a superficially charming, yet amoral hedonist.

Are you willing to believe, like Jane, that Mr Wickham ‘is not so undeserving’ as we might have thought. Or is he, as we always believed, in possession of ‘neither integrity or honour?’

Lizzy