Janette Haslam: Ladies Period Costumier

Monday 15th September - 10:00

Discover the intricate world of a professional ladies period costumier. This lecture explores the journey into the role, the project lifecycle from initial contact to final deadline, budget restrictions and the collaborative process with designers and artists across Film, Theatre, TV, Musicals, Ballet and Opera. The session will feature past work from Elizabethan to modern and a wide selection of Regency costumes.

Tickets £13

The Watsons with Rose Servitova

Monday 15th September - 11:30

In her talk on The Watsons, Rose Servitova explores what inspired her to complete Jane Austen’s unfinished novel - from fandom and her fascination with Austen to the challenge of capturing Austen's distinctive voice. She will discuss her writing process, her love of authenticity and why humour is key. Finally, she explains why The Watsons is ripe for screen adaptation.

Tickets £13

Austen Fantasy House Hunt: The architecture we don’t see in Jane Austen

Monday 15th September - 16:00

The streets and houses in Jane Austen’s novels are essential to defining the people who occupy them, but what about the buildings the characters never actually visit? Join Dr Amy Frost as she explores the buildings that are not described by Austen, and invites you to help construct these fictional homes. Audience participation welcome, no drawing skills required, just bring your imagination.

Tickets £13

Jane Austen's Portrait - with Melissa Dring

Tuesday 16th September - 12 noon

This talk charts the extensive research made by forensic artist portrait painter, Melissa Dring, when commissioned to produce a new likeness of Jane Austen in 2001. Chasing all possible clues, not only the Austen family look, but such intimate details as Jane’s underwear, were equally crucial to the final lifelike image. This, of course, also had to convey something of Jane’s character and reveal her sparkling wit and wisdom…Did Melissa succeed? Judge for yourselves!

Tickets £13

Assembly and Diversity in Jane Austen’s Bath

Tuesday 16th September - 16:00

Jane Austen’s Bath was a city of spectacle, sociability, and surprising diversity. This talk, with Dr Tim Moore, explores the vibrant world of Georgian Bath and the radical inclusivity of its world-famous assemblies. From fashionable elites to cross-dressing non-conformists, and from plantation owners to abolitionists and people of colour, discover the melting pot of identity that made up Georgian Bath, and how it shaped the world that Austen knew and wrote about.

Tickets £13

Dye and colour in Regency life

Wednesday 17th September - 10:00

Learn about colour in Regency times. Trace the creatively described colours of fashions in the journals of the time back to the ancient art and alchemy of natural colours. This lecture will explore the fascinating sources including, plants, spices, animals and elements used. The complex processes, which sit somewhere between science and magic, used to consistently create colours across the spectrum. Exploring how these colours were named and sold through fashion journals before finally looking at the practical issues of wearing and maintaining naturally coloured clothing.

Tickets £13

Living with Jane Austen

Wednesday 17th September - 11:30

Janet Todd has been reading Jane Austen for many decades, observing how her work alters through the lens of evolving taste and cultural fashion: also through changes in herself as she passes through different periods of life.
Recently, Janet Todd has come to appreciate the bracing, humorous way Austen deals with bodies and their disorders--including her own. Engaging with the medical buzzword of the times—‘nerves’—through her characters, Austen investigates the subtle interaction of mind and body, the discomfort that seeps from one to the other. Finally, Janet Todd looks at Austen’s private letters where she exposes her own ‘nervous’ quality.

Tickets £13

250 years before Jane Austen: a short and partial version of British history

Wednesday 17th September - 14:00

In this fully illustrated talk, Director of Jane Austen’s House takes us back in time to explore the seismic political, religious, and social changes that shaped the world that Jane Austen was born into in 1775. From the Mary Queen of Scots to the South Sea bubble and beyond, we will explore ten key events that shaped both the writer and her world.

Tickets £13

The Worlds of Jane Austen - with Helena Kelly

Wednesday 17th September - 16:00

The Worlds of Jane Austen takes a fresh look at Jane Austen’s life, inspirations and legacy, drawing on the latest research in an accessible and lively way.
Despite the tranquil image of Austen that lingers in the popular imagination, her life coincided with a period of intense, immense change. The American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, the uprising in Ireland… All through Austen’s early life, the old certainties were being subjected to challenge, new ideas were springing up – about democracy, freedom, slavery, poetry, the position of women.
Helena Kelly is the author of Jane Austen, the Secret Radical (2016).

Tickets £13

Murder Most Austen

Thursday 18th September - 12:30

The past decade has seen a significant rise in Jane Austen detective fiction retellings. But what is it about Austen’s work that lends itself to the detective genre? What makes the Austen heroine qualified to solve a murder?
Join crime writer and crime fiction scholar Dr Lucy Andrew for a talk exploring the influence of Austen’s work on the development of detective fiction and the motives behind the current Austen crime wave.

Tickets £13

Dormouse to Donkey Carts - The Carriages of Jane Austen's Era

Thursday 18th September - 14:00

Amy Bracey has been driving horse-drawn carriages since she was knee high to a grasshopper and her love for them became a career when working for the National Trust, cataloguing their carriage collection. She is Project Curator for The Carriage Foundation, an educational charity, and advises museums and individuals across the globe on the care, conservation, history and research of horse-drawn carriages.
This illustrated presentation will explore the modes of transport mentioned in Austen's novels and what they represented in the subtle language of her writings.

Tickets £13

Dressing Obstinate Headstrong Girls; A look into the Costume Design within Jane Austen's film adaptations.

Friday 19th September - 10:00

In "Dressing Obstinate Headstrong Girls", Costume Designer and Fashion Historian Jolene Marie Richardson will be examining how costume designers use Jane Austen's characters and the Regency period at large to create the look of Austen's most notable characters. Looking at "What does Regency clothing tell us about history?" and "How do costume designers take history but imbue their own voice as designers?", this lecture will look at the role of costume designer and how they work with actors, screenwriters, and directors to create visual signifiers for each character. We will also examine how the times in which films were made reflect both that era and the historical era of the story. Come with Jolene as we go behind the seams into Jane Austen's world of her most famous film adaptations.

Tickets £13

Dancing with the Stars (Georgian Style)

Friday 19th September - 11:30

Jane Austen. The Duchess of Devonshire. The Prince Regent. What do these lives have in common? They were ‘fond of dancing and excelled in it’. From learning from famous dancing masters, to performing at the assembly rooms and in the homes of the fashionable Bon Ton in London, join Dr Hillary Burlock as she explores the triumphs and trials of Georgian celebrities in the ballroom.

Tickets £14

Regency Fashion in the Fashion Museum Bath Collection

Friday 19th September - 14:00

Join curator Elisabeth Murray to discover more about fashion during the Regency period, through the lens of the Fashion Museum Bath collection.

Tickets £13

A Guide to Regency Dress - with Hilary Davidson

Saturday 20th September - 10:00

Join Hilary Davidson, associate professor and chair of MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York as she presents her new book: A Guide to Regency Dress. Covering male and female Regency fashion, hairstyles, jewellery and cosmetics, and revealing never-before-published facts and images, from the author’s fifteen years of research of original sources. This talk will form a practical introduction to all things Regency dress.

Tickets £13

Jane Austen’s Contradictory Characters - with John Mullan

Saturday 20th September - 11:30

Austen’s characters come to life partly because of their delicious - often absurd - inconsistencies. This talk will look at some of the ways that they entertainingly contradict themselves. It will reveal how the novels’ heroines, as well as their comic characters, come, like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, ’to counteract their favourite maxims’.

Tickets £16

Gossip in Jane Austen - with John Mullan

Saturday 20th September - 14:00

In Jane Austen’s novels, gossip swirls around the characters. We will see how gossip is the life-blood of the small communities in which her heroines live, even if they sometimes do not perceive it. Sometimes, in fact, it shapes the very plots of the novels. Unlike Jane Austen’s Emma, we must learn to listen to the gossip.

Tickets £16