Jane Austen News - Issue 123

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A Jane Austen Scholar - A Must For A Board Game Two copyright specialists from the UK have designed a board game to help research students and early-career researchers understand copying and licensing choices. Jane Secker and Chris Morrison have created what is being called the 'academic Game of Life', but which is officially titled The Publishing Trap, in the hope that copyright literacy will be better understood across the library and cultural sector in the UK. The reason we mention it in the Jane Austen News is because of the four characters (all academics whose career life cycles the game charts, from PhD submission to professorship) one of them is a Jane Austen scholar, the others being an astrophysicist, a criminologist and a microbiologist. We thought that it might be a game a few of our Jane Austen scholar readers might be interested to have a play of to see if the game reflects a few of the issue they may have met. The game can be downloaded for free from Secker and Morrison's UK copyright Literacy website.

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Congratulations to Emma Thompson! Last week we congratulated Keira Knightley (aka Lizzy Bennet 2005) on her OBE. Shortly afterwards we received an email from Colleen G.

Not to detract from Keira Knightley's OBE, but what about Emma Thompson (Elinor Dashwood) being awarded a DBE? Not only did she act in Sense & Sensibility but she also wrote the award-winning screenplay.

Quite right! We weren't aware of (now Dame) Emma Thompson's inclusion on the list, and we're delighted to hear that such an excellent actress (and a huge Jane Austen fan) has been so honoured.  Huge congratulations to Dame Emma!

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Playing Around With Jane in Scotland "Imagine an all-female cast in regency costume doing Pride and Prejudice with guitars.[...] I think we both felt we wanted to do something that audiences who might not have any association with Jane Austen’s work could still have fun with and sparkle. It’s important for us that there’s no stuffiness there." These are the words of Isobel McArthur, co-founder of the Blood of the Young theatre company, talking about adapting Pride and Prejudice for the stage along with her co-founder Paul Brotherson. The company have created "Pride and Prejudice* *(Sort Of)"; an five-actor, all-female production featuring glitter balls, karaoke, balloons and guitars. “So many scenes in the novel are set at balls. They were exciting events for young women coming from that background, because that was where the match-making happened. We thought of doing something similar for now with karaoke, and putting a whole load of karaoke classics into the mix.” What fun! We really like this idea so thought we'd share the news of the new production (a new and improved version of an old production which they have done). We also rather hope they'll take the show on tour after its run at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, where the show will be playing from June 28th - July 14th this year.