Lengthy earlier than the bodice-ripping antics of Bridgerton, there was Colin Firth rising wet-shirted from a lake within the 1995 BBC miniseries Delight And Prejudice.
The famed encounter noticed Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) getting sizzling and bothered on the sight of the brooding Mr Darcy (Firth) in his damp undergarments.
It additionally marked a turning level for Jane Austen variations, which had beforehand relied on chaste seems and witty repartee for romantic stress.
That two-minute scene has turn into a part of TV folklore, resulting in Firth’s now notorious white shirt promoting at public sale for $50,000 final yr.
Solely, in keeping with Firth, it by no means really occurred. Speaking about his attractive stint as Mr Darcy, the British actor revealed he by no means went swimming in his britches and undershirt. And the perceived Austen peepshow was all all the way down to the magic of tv (and the wishful pondering of viewers).
“The shirt was barely soggy or clingy or any of the things it’s mythologized to be,” a bemused Firth has mentioned.
“They have even got me coming out of a lake, which I know I never did, and that got voted the most memorable moment in television history: the thing that never happened!”
Nonetheless, the moist shirt gadget was used once more in season two of Bridgerton when Jonathan Bailey’s character paraded his rippling muscle mass after an icy dip.
And Firth himself would pay homage to the career-making scene in Love Really, when his lovelorn character falls for his Portuguese maid after she (and he) dive right into a lake to save lots of his manuscript.
The 1995 retelling of Jane Austen’s famed novel proved interval dramas could possibly be attractive and draw a crowd, inspiring creator Helen Fielding to pen her personal adaptation of Delight And Prejudice, Bridget Jones’s Diary – which might, in fact, additionally characteristic Firth as a contemporary Mark Darcy when tailored for the display.
Having already impressed numerous movie and tv sequence – the perfect of which being the 1940 Oscar-winning model starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, and 2005’s coupling of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen – producers are taking the plunge on Delight And Prejudice once more.
This time, All the pieces I Know About Love creator and one-time Made In Chelsea story producer Dolly Alderton is bringing her distinctive perspective to Austen’s 1813 novel with Emma Corrin (who gained a Golden Globe taking part in a younger Princess Diana in The Crown) as Elizabeth and Sluggish Horses’ Jack Lowden as the brand new Darcy. Rounding out the solid is Oscar-winner Olivia Colman because the social-climbing Mrs Bennet.
“Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be part of it,” Alderton mentioned.
“Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy – it has been a joy to delve back into its pages to find both familiar and fresh ways of bringing this beloved book to life.”
