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Janeites may get a touch of the vapours but ITV bosses hope other viewers will swoon with delight as the first in the new season of Jane Austen films, Persuasion, is sealed with a kiss.
At the risk of shocking purists, ITV's new season of Jane Austen films will be sealed with a kiss. The end of her last novel, Persuasion, will see dashing Captain Wentworth locking lips with heroine Anne Elliot after a frustrating on-off courtship.
During that period, in real life they'd never have kissed in public. But the snog between Spooks actor Rupert Penry-Jones' handsome captain and Sally Hawkins' heroine is all the more memorable for being played in oh-so-slow motion as their lips edge hesitantly together.
Hawkins, who starred in BBC2's Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, says the kiss is a must in a modern retelling of the story.
"Everyone is desperate for Anne and the captain to kiss," she says. "You wouldn't have seen them kissing in public in Jane Austen's book, but it's great that it happens because you need that release.
"It's good that we're telling a classic story in a modern way. This adaptation is pretty much loyal to the book, but I think we're allowed a few liberties.
"Perhaps we need the kiss as a generation. I know if I was watching this at home, I'd be shouting at the telly for them to kiss."
The makers played safe by filming two versions of the scene - one in which they kissed, another in which they didn't - so they could make up their mind later which to show.
Persuasion is one of three new films in ITV1's Jane Austen season, beginning next month. Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park are the others. A repeat of a previous ITV Austen film, Emma, completes the set.
Some will say that ITV is treading on BBC territory. Classic costume drama has, traditionally, been Auntie's prerogative with the Beeb returning regularly to Austen's six novels over the last five decades.
ITV director of drama, Nick Elliott, sees the season as part of the broadcaster's fight back against "being talked about negatively", as he puts it.
"We've been working hard towards that goal of restoring ITV to the nation's most popular channel," he said at the launch of the Austen season.
The ITV drama department has axed some old series, including Where The Heart Is, to make way for fresh drama, including the Austen season. It was one of the first things that Simon Shaps approved after becoming director of television at ITV.
Each of the films has been made by a different company with different casts and directors, giving each a distinct look. They're designed to appeal to a younger audience that usually switches off when Austen is on.
Mansfield Park has a cast led by former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper and was shot with a lot of handheld camerawork to give it a more modern look.
The adaptation of Austin's Gothic romance Northanger Abbey is by Andrew Davies, whose BBC version of Pride And Prejudice resulted in the much-discussed Colin Firth wet shirt scene. And Persuasion has not only that kiss but pin-up boy Penry-Jones filling the hero's breeches for the Darcy effect.
Filming took cast and crew to Newby Hall near Ripon, which became the Regency period mansion in Mansfield Park. Northanger Abbey was filmed in Ireland, using a 21st Century Dublin street for 19th Century Bath. Persuasion went to the real location, filming on the Royal Crescent, Bath, as well as the wave-lashed Cobb at Lyme Regis.
Elliott believes that great stories are only great stories if they are retold every ten years or so, and that's the thinking behind the Austen season.
"Each uses the bright young talent available to do it. These films will be 2007 films, whether it's in the language or the style of dramatics," he says.
The 20-minute clips from each production shown at the launch bear this out. Not only do they look and sound different to previous, stuffy Austen adaptations but each has a feel of its own.
Billie Piper, a piece of casting as Fanny Price in Mansfield Park that's clearly designed to attract younger viewers, never thought of herself as an Austen heroine but liked the approach to the ITV film.
"The director wanted it to feel very fresh and young. Sometimes period drama can be stuffy and quite boring, I find," she says. "He did a lot with a handheld camera so it feels like you're spying on this family, that's what I love about it."
The Jane Austen season begins on ITV1 in mid-March.
9:02am Saturday 24th February 2007
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