Speaking as someone who once got banned from the BBC History forum (how is it my fault if everyone wants to flame each other over Regency House Party??) - I'm glad the BBC is dropping Regency costume drama. I love Jane Austen's works, but some of these latest dramas have become a grotesque breeches'n'bonnets parody which, despite my enthusiasm for literature, I can hardly be bothered to watch these days. Whatever happened to Austen's gloriously catty voice? Her unsentimental opinions?I'm also pretty fed up of Andrew Davies' reputation for raunchiness - something that he himself seemed fed up with at least eight years ago when I saw him address the University of Warwick writing group; he complained about 'that picture of Colin Firth in a wet shirt' and seeing it pinned to the kitchen cupboards of 'women of a certain age'. Amazing that, in his BBC adaptation of John Cleland's Fanny Hill, he actually went the other way and turned a work of eroticism into cosy teatime drama!
