Miss Austen: who's in the cast of the Jane Austen BBC series?
Miss Austen: who's in the cast of the Jane Austen BBC series?
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The life of Jane Austen – and the celebrated books she wrote – has been pored over hundreds of times, by millions of fans and scholars. And she needs no introduction: this is the mind that brought us Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma.
But fewer people know about her sister, Cassandra. That’s all about to change thanks to the BBC’s new series, Miss Austen. It’s set to explore the life and times of the Austen sisters – neither of whom married and who were, by all accounts, extraordinarily close.
It’s also jam-packed with big names. Here’s who’s in it. Cassandra Austen is Jane’s sister. Like Jane, Cassandra never married, and after her death, she’s seen travelling to the home of her ex-fiance’s niece in search of letters that Jane once sent. Her aim is to destroy them - but why?.
Keeley Hawes in an English actor. Born in Paddington, she’s gone onto appear in both UK–based TV series and Hollywood blockbusters. Her breakthrough came in 1998 and 2002, with appearances in Our Mutual Fame and Tipping the Velvet; she then starred as Zoe Reynolds in the BBC spy series Spooks, before going onto appear in Ashes to Ashes.
More recently, she’s appeared in Russell T Davies’ Channel 4 drama It’s A Sin, played DI Lindsay Denton in Jed Mercurio’s TV series Line of Duty, and appeared in 2018 drama The Bodyguard as the Home Secretary. She’s been nominated for three BAFTA Awards, and indeed won one for her role in Line of Duty.
Mary Austen is the sister of Isabella Fowle’s mother, Eliza – who was in turn a close friend of Jane and Cassandra. Petulant and anxious, she eventually married their brother, James Austen, thereby becoming their sister in law. And she also harbours a worrying desire to write a biography and James and Janes’ lives as writers.
