Paula Byrne, biographer of Jane Austen, is not a fan of what Hollywood has done to her subject’s heroines. In a caustic talk at the Hay Festival, Byrne complained about Gwyneth Paltrow’s “nasal whine” in Emma — “I just want to strangle her” — and said that Emma Thompson was far too old to play Elinor in Sense and Sensibility.
Her greatest criticism was for Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice. “Completely wrong,” she says. “Wooden and doesn’t articulate very well.” It’s not all bad, though. Fishing for something nice to say about Knightley, Byrne offers: “She has a beautiful back.”
RARE SIGHTING
Bill Bailey, comedian and ornithologist, combined his tour with some bird-watching in the Hebrides, but got a surprising reaction at his gig in Stornoway. He walked out to silence and then someone in the audience said: “It’s him!” Bailey was perplexed. “Who were you expecting?” he asked. “The name’s on the ticket.” Then, giving an idea of what Saturday night in Stornoway must usually be like, came the reply: “We thought it would be a lookalike.”
In one of the less expected endorsements of this campaign, Tatler has come out for Jeremy Corbyn. This is on the ground that he is the poshest candidate to be PM. The evidence: a brother called Piers; one son called Seb, another who resembles Zac Goldsmith; grew up in a manor house with a paddock; married three times; latest wife runs a fair-trade coffee empire. It’s hard to see how he recovers from this.
BOXED IN
John Prescott is gloomy about his legacy. “People won’t remember me for my 40 years in parliament,” the former deputy prime minister sighs. “I’ll be remembered for the time I thumped that bloke in the street. They’ve even put a plaque on the wall to mark the spot of this great historic punch. That’s life.” Prescott’s assault on a bemulleted Welshman in 2001 didn’t prevent a landslide for Tony Blair. And yet Theresa May won’t risk a press conference with Boris Johnson?
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After yesterday’s item about a child’s view of politics, Mike Thomas reports that the son of a friend of his came home the day after the 1970 election thrilled that he had been the only one in the class who had known the name of the new prime minister. The teacher docked half a mark for him proudly announcing that it was “Bloody Heath”.
ELECTORAL GAINS
It’s not just politicians’ noses that are getting longer. Analysis by Philip Cowley, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, reveals that constituency names are getting longer and more complicated. In 1950, the average seat was 12.8 letters long; now it’s 15.1 and will rise to 16.7 under the proposed boundary review. Sixty years ago there were 282 one-word constituencies; that will fall to 160. For every Hove, there is an Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, which sounds less of a constituency and more the Scotland rugby team’s threequarter line.
