‘The Other Bennet Sister’: First Teaser Previews BritBox’s ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Spin-Off!! Check It Out!!

Quite an Austen-tacious year for Jane Austen fans. As fans celebrate her 250th birthday, the studio behind His Dark Materials and Doctor Who, Bad Wolf, is unveiling a new look at the upcoming BritBox series The Other Bennet Sister. The series centers around Mary Bennet, the “oft-overlooked middle sister” of the Bennet clan that fans are familiar with from Austen‘s most famous work: Pride and Prejudice.

The focus on Mary comes from the mind of Janice Hadlow, who wrote a novel of the same name. The cast includes: Ella Bruccoleri (Bridgerton) as Mary Bennet, Ruth Jones (Gavin & Stacey), Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), Indira Varma (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Richard Coyle (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Tanya Reynolds (The Decameron), Dónal Finn (The Wheel of Time), Varada Sethu (Doctor Who, Andor), and Laurie Davidson (A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story), Maddie Close (Sunflower Child), Poppy Gilbert (My Oxford Year), Molly Wright (APOSTASY), and Grace Hogg-Robinson (COBRA).

The teaser for The Other Bennet Sister brings about the coming-of-age story of the more awkward, quiet middle sister. Mary travels to London to live with an aunt and uncle (played by Varma and Grant) to begin her own journey.It’s clear from the beginning that Mary often feels lost in her sisters’ shadows. The typecast she fits them into are seen as more desirable in the early 19th Century, sure to make a match, whereas she feels as though simply by being herself, she’s less desirable. But as Mary seems to find out, the people that truly matter are the ones that love her for exactly how she is. With so few lines in the original source material, as compared to other Bennet sisters other than Lizzie, there’s a lot of growth to be had for Bruccoleri’s Mary Bennet in The Other Bennet Sister.

‘The Other Bennet Sister’ Premieres as Part of “Austen Forever” Collection

The BritBox “Austen Forever” collection includes multiple adaptations of her work. The collection was launched last winter ahead of the 250th birthday of the late author, who passed at age 41 in 1817. The “Austen Forever” collection joins BritBox‘s series of themed collection honoring the adapted works of literary titans including Agatha Christie and Charles Dickens. Fans can expect derivative tales from their Austen favorites as well as pieces that highlight Jane Austen the person, such as Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius, and Becoming Jane. There’s quite literally something for everyone, those newer fans who maybe are interested in digesting Austen’s work through a modern lens, such as Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary, but there’s also the traditionalists who want to tuck into the 1995 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice featuring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. For those that wish to split the difference, the fresh adaptation of The Other Bennet Sister, may be exactly what you need.