How an Ancestor's Crush led to a Jane Austen Success Show

How an Ancestor’s Crush led to a Jane Austen Success Show

by Hobart Magazine

New Zealand comedian Penny Ashton is hitting Hobart to perform her Jane Austen-inspired one-woman show, performed over 600 times in six countries, even winning Best Theatre at the Adelaide Fringe. Ashton herself has a surprising connection to Austen: she’s related to the man who may have inspired Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

How did your show, Promise & Promiscuity, come about? In 2008 I devised the improv musical theatrical; Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen for the NZ Improv Fest. To be somewhat boastful – it went off mate! In 2013 I sat down to write a scripted solo pastiche in the same joyous vein.

What is your connection to Jane Austen? Just before the premiere of Promise & Promiscuity my Australian uncle (and Ancestry.com fiend) contacted me to say; “You seem to like Jane Austen so may be interested to know you are related to her lover.” Now I knew that as an unmarried gentlewoman of propriety, the joys of casual sex were denied her, so lover was a stretch. But I knew the man in question as he is a legend in Austen circles as being the possible inspiration for Mr Darcy; Thomas Langlois Lefroy. Austen flirted with him in 1795-ish aged 20, and he is James McAvoy in the movie Becoming Jane. And blow-me-down he’s my fifth great uncle. His nephew Gerald De Courcy Lefroy moved to WA in 1843 and is my fourth great grandfather through to my Australian mum. Struth!

Why do you think Jane Austen still resonates today? Jane Austen understood that love was all well and good, but being able to afford pantaloons when required was also very useful. And people still love a good love story well told. Her works are sharp, hilarious, ironic, proto feminist and she invented a whole new style of narrative. I get infuriated when she is relegated to “women’s stuff” and therefore frivolous.

How can people get involved? I’m very excited for my first trip to Hobart on 6 and 7 June. More info is at www.hotpink.co.nz.

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