Colonel Brandon

Sense and Sensibility is the latest adaptation of a Jane Austen novel.

The main cast stars Daisy Edgar Jones as Eleanor Dashwood, Esme Creed Miles as her sister Marianne, Catriona Balfe as Mrs. Dashwood, the mother, Frank Delane as John Willoughby, Herbert Nordrum as Colonel Brandon, George Mackay as Edward Ferris, Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings, Bodhi Ray Brethak as Margaret Dashwood, Stacey Martin as Fanny Dashwood, Tom Brook as John Dashwood, and Terloy Convery.

Now, I don't think there's any people of colour in that line-up.

Is there, Clarice?

yeah.Um, going back to something you touched upon earlier about sort of settling.

A conversation that I've been having with my friends recently about Sense and Sensibility is the idea of Marianne being, does, is she punished by ending up with Colonel Brandon?

Mm.

Um, and-

... better than him? He's fantastic at it.

He's very, very untrustworthy, isn't he? Um, uh, Herbert Nordrum as the clearly trustworthy and, if truth be told, clearly Norwegian Colonel Brandon.

And-

Being, uh, very Alan Rickman-ish.

It is doing something different.

I think it's really hard to live up to Alan Rickman's Colonel Brandon.

I mean, I don't think I'm the only person who still just sort of swoons whenever he comes on.

It's an interesting role,

Thank you very much, Samantha Ellis.

Sense and Sensibility is in cinemas this Friday.

No question, I think, that a mid-century Marianne would have wanted Colonel Brandon to be a jazz fan and would have been gravely disappointed if he failed to show sufficient enthusiasm for John Coltrane, who was born exactly 100 years ago tomorrow.

Coltrane was the essence of a certain kind of jazz sensibility, passionate and expressive and utterly dedicated to the seriousness of his art.

Yes.

And so that was always, when we had our book discussion, that was one of the conversations that we had was about social norms and you know this idea that Colonel Brandon would court a 16 year old and the implications of that because in the novel Colonel Brandon is described as being and I can't remember this it's either 5 years older or 5 years younger than Mrs. Dashwood so it's like Okay, and now he's courting a teenager.

Interesting, right?

But

Talking, yeah, exactly.

Between Michelle Yeoh and Chalyon Fatt.

Do you think Willoughby and Colonel Brandon is the Ethan Hawke-Ben Stiller debate all over again?

Maybe, but in a way, even though I detested Ethan Hawke's character, I think Willoughby's kind of worse.

She really wanted to heighten the sensibility of that novel.

And she turned Marianne into a kind of fainting, swooning Maria and then radically changed the ending so that her marriage to Colonel Brandon became more convincing.

Really is an eye opener.

It's Jane Austen, but not as we know her.

And she wants her to have a readership But I think she noticed, I mean, in terms of reader responses, there's a long history of reader responses thinking Marianne Dashwood's fate, the ending that we give Marianne Dashwood, is not quite acceptable.

You know, people are very distressed by what happens to this young woman in marrying a man who has a penchant for flannel waistcoats.

And I think what Isabelle de Montelieu does is she makes the love affair between Marianne and Colonel Brandon much, much more convincing.

What Isabelle de Montelieu's character Mariah does is she throws herself at Brandon's feet and proposes to him direct.

Marianne was vexed at it for her sister's sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave Elinor far more pain than could arise from such commonplace raillery as Mrs. Jennings'.

Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted by resemblance of manner to be his friend than Lady Middleton was to be his wife, or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton's mother.

He was silent and grave.

His appearance, however, was not unpleasing, in spite of his being, in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret, an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty.

But although his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.

There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods, but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive that in comparison of it, the gravity of Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his mother-in-law, was interesting.

Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children after dinner, who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to every kind of discourse except what related to themselves.

In the evening, as Marianne was discovered to be musical, she was invited to play.