Harrogate audiences to take a new look on famous character

A play questioning attitudes to one of the most famous literary figures is heading to Harrogate next month.

For more than 200 years, Mrs Bennet has been fretting about her daughters, embarrassing them in public and providing generations of Pride and Prejudice readers with some of Jane Austen's best comic moments.

But in Bravo Mrs Bennet, a comedy written and performed by Rachel Fearnehough, audiences are challenged in their perceptions.

Rachel has known the character since her youth, but something has changed.

She explained: “I'm now a woman around the same age as Mrs Bennet and so my sympathies have increased as the years have rolled by.”

The beginnings of the play can be traced to a conversation over coffee at St Martin's about middle-aged womanhood and the way it is represented in literature.

Rachel subsequently pitched Mrs Bennet as an idea at a writers' workshop at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre in 2025, where she was encouraged to develop it as a one-woman show.

And then two unexpected collaborators intervened - a knee operation and some heavy snow.

Both provided time for writing and research and, eventually, the impetus to turn the idea into a production.

Along the way Rachel met Paula Vickers while they were appearing in Scarborough Theatre Company's The Wizard of Oz.

Paula now joins her in Bravo Mrs Bennet as Mrs Hill, with the pair sharing an ambition to give, as Rachel puts it, “middle class women of a certain age” a voice - while creating a comedy audiences can enjoy.

Rachel added: “You don't need to know your Bingleys from your Bennets to come along.

“No knowledge of Jane Austen or Pride and Prejudice is necessary - it's intended to work simply as an accessible character comedy.

“There is, however, a little audience participation in the form of parlour games - entirely optional.

“And those with an interest in history may even leave knowing something they didn't know before. Such as what a goosecap is.”

Rachel said she hopes audiences will leave laughing, perhaps with a few of Mrs Bennet's “universal truths” ringing in their ears.

“Behind the comedy sits an interesting historical contrast - Austen was writing Pride and Prejudice at a time when works such as Fordyce's Sermons were instructing young women on how they ought to behave,” added Rachel.

“Perhaps, then, after two centuries of being one of literature's most famous embarrassing mothers, it's finally time to hear Mrs Bennet's side of the story.”

Bravo Mrs Bennet will be performed at The Royal Pump Room Museum in Harrogate on October 9 and 10 at 2pm.