News that Andrew Davies – the man behind the nation’s most beloved Pride and Prejudice adaptation – is planning to have Jane Austen’s Emma die in childbirth drew gasps from audiences at Cliveden literary festival last weekend. Davies is planning to explore the dark undercurrents of Austen’s work in adaptations of Emma, Mansfield Park and unfinished novel The Watsons, and while his ideas may shock those fans wedded to Austen as a romcom author, I couldn’t be happier.

I have always loved a period drama, especially literary adaptations. A few years ago, though, Austen fatigue set in for me. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve seen at least three Emmas and three Pride and Prejudices, and read each of her novels at least thrice. There are so many other stories in the world, many waiting to be discovered and adapted. Unless there was some new spin or interpretation being offered, I simply stopped being interested.

As such I enjoyed Sanditon – what joy to have Austen’s West Indian heiress brought to life. But Emma with Anya Taylor-Joy bored me, and the less said about Netflix’s Persuasion (“now we’re worse than exes; we’re friends”), the better.

If comments from readers of the Times are anything to go by, audiences will get in a froth about how “woke” Davies’s adaptations are when they make it to our screens, especially in their approach to slavery. Austen makes passing reference to slavery in Emma and Mansfield Park; in the latter it is clear that this is where the Bertram family have made their money. So why not show scenes making this explicit? Why not........

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