An interview with series creator of Elinor and Marianne Take Barton

Emily Nabney is a third year student at Warwick, not only juggling studying English Lit and Film with being The Boar’s very own Books Editor, but she’s also the co-creator of web-series Elinor and Marianne Take Barton, a reimagining of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility: transporting the story from page to a video diary. Marianne, a fresher, guides us through her feelings and interactions with Austen’s characters and events, as well as the trials and tribulations that accompany coming of age at uni.

So Emily, what’s your role in the project?

So, we came up with this concept and Olivia Cole and I worked together to hash it out. So now basically I’m a producer on the show as well as a co-writer- so my responsibilities obviously include writing some of the scripts. As a producer I’m responsible for bits of everything: so writing the schedule, booking equipment, sorting out any props and stuff. I was keeping an eye on everything which made it pretty stressful at times.

What was the inspiration behind taking this on?

So I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, and always have been, and Sense and Sensibility is my favourite Austen book because the characters are so on point. I love the way it shows things like the relationship between the sisters and first loves, and for years and years I always thought about “how would I put this on?” And I feel I’ve taken inspiration from things likes Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You in the way they take an old story and turn it into something new. And then over summer between first and second year I watched the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is in a similar format, and I thought it was the perfect way to show it. And Olivia had either also seen it, or maybe she was the one who recommended it to me, and we were just like “we should do this”.

So this is an idea that seems to be classically done with Shakespeare. You’ve got She’s the Man, Get over It, 10 Things I Hate… etc. Do you think Jane Austen’s work actually lends itself more to this adaptation process?

Yes I do, because she’s so insightful about characters. Marianne and Elinor are absolutely contemporary characters and they were the ones we had to change the least when we were writing. I think a lot of Shakespeare’s appeal comes in the language, imagery and style and when they’re taken away you can lose quite a bit, whereas what makes Austen great is her characterisation.

Besides you and Olivia, How many people are involved in the series?

So there’s the cast of seven Actors, Olivia and me as Director/ Producer and then there’s three other helpers behind the scenes: Madi Jones who does costume, hair and makeup, Sam Tomlinson’s editor and chips in behind the scenes, and then we had Jess Wilson doing marketing and publicity. They’re all great.

What were you looking for when you set out with casting?

So I remember thinking we really wanted someone who had done quite a bit of stage work for Marianne, whereas for Elinor we really wanted someone who had done more work on film. Because Marianne is this big performer, always putting on a show, whereas Elinor is this more real, nuanced character. And we found Bonita Trigg who’s doing a degree in theatrical performance and Abi Davies who had done all this film work, so that was perfect. Lots of people came in and when we called people back to see them in combinations, I think they were the first ones. So I recall we were about ten minutes into it and we already knew we’d cast our leads because they just worked so well as sisters.

The other roles were a bit harder to cast. Especially with the boys, because we were limited by not having many audition. A lot of them we thought could play either of two roles and it was a case of working out who was best for what. And it’s interesting as well, because a lot of them are cast against type. So Gareth [Roberts], who plays Edward, is this really confident guy who’s playing this scared little mouse so it’s really different to how he’s seen by people who know him. With Charlotte as well, we had a couple of strong Charlottes but Sofia [Pardon] just came in and blew it away. Sofia was so good that we actually wrote her part to be bigger. Lucy was probably the hardest to cast because there’s this ambiguity to her that she’s this nice girl, but really she isn’t. She isn’t this cliché horrible scheming bitch, and that’s why Georgie Wedge’s so good because she didn’t come in and play her in that way.

So you guys obviously write scripts, but part of the appeal is how natural the dialogue appears. How much scope for improvisation do you allow the cast?

You’d be surprised by how much of the work is actually lifted ad verbatim from the book. But we do try to allow a degree of flexibility because it’s more natural if they’re free. We tend to give them less freedom when there are bits that are taken from the book because we’re like “no, look you need to get this bit right”, but there are a few episodes where we let them play a bit more. For example, there was a Q&A session with Marianne and Will, and we weren’t going to script that. It’d feel weird.

Sense and Sensibility has been adapted on a number of occasions, both on film and TV. Why do you think the web series format is the best?

First of all, you really get into the psychology of the characters a lot more. It is Marianne’s diary and it’s really intimate. So you can understand her as a character; which is really important because a lot of other versions show Elinor as the protagonist and Marianne’s just this silly character that flaps around. Another great thing is time- we don’t have to try and fit this all into a two hour film. The 1995, Ang Lee version is great, and there are a lot of bits we borrowed from that, but it still misses out a lot. So there’s this scene where Willoughby comes back and apologises. And it’s not there. It’s like, why isn’t this there?! It’s really really important.

Obviously, the diary entries go up on the internet both in and out of the show’s world. How do you deal with grounding this interaction with new media so it doesn’t seem unrealistic or indulgent?

So the way we got around this was just because Marianne doesn’t have boundaries. Marianne is in love with this idea that her life is this big dramatic story on screen. Whenever we were stuck thinking “would she actually do this” we’d always realise “Yeh she would- she’s mad.” There is a difficulty in showing the internet on screen, partly because the internet is inherently undramatic. A lot of the times it’s just people sitting in their rooms in front of a screen. But Marianne is using it in taking bits of her life and sticking it up there, just to see what happens. And there are plot points that revolve around the fact when she uploads it the videos actually go somewhere. People find out things at different times. It is a useful in world device.

A lot of people’s ideas of Jane Austen adaptations are dominated by the costumes. People can sometimes dismiss them as pretty girls in nice dresses frolicking around. But a modern setting completely bypasses this. Is that an important thing for you?

I think it was so so important for us to put some distance from that. I mean, I love the Lizzie Bennet diaries, and I don’t want to criticise it, but the girls still just looked perfect all the time. Even late at night they’d always have a full face of makeup. But with Elinor and Marianne, sometimes they would be dressed up if they were going out or something, but it was just as important to show female characters looking normal. I like that through things like Tumblr, we’re seeing a great way of educating this generation of girls that they don’t need to fit this cookie cutter idea of a woman that’s perpetuated. And this story fits in nicely with that new wave of feminism. One thing we didn’t want was for it to end up resembling a CW show. As much as I love teen drama, we wanted to be going against it. But Marianne does mention these kinds of shows, and that’s a conscious decision. So while she understands those plot lines, they don’t play out in real life.

Any future plans with the series? Are you going to attempt a sequel, or would that count as sacrilege?

So a few people have asked if we’re going to make another series, but my thought is always “Why?!?” Everything gets wrapped up at the end; it’s not a story to continue with because everyone gets their ending. So when all the episodes stop coming out Elinor and Marianne… is done in my opinion.

Has the process enhanced your love of the text and writing then, or has the stress put you off?

Yeh. For me, I’d never written something that got made into a real thing before and so I got to learn from the actors- what they liked, what they didn’t like, and so I got lots more confidence and it was a really valuable experience for me. And obviously it’ll stand out in applications if I look at doing an MA in Screen-writing. People keep reminding me “Oh my god! You made a 32 episode webseries” and I’m still shocked I’ve made something so big.

Just to finish with, in your opinion, which is more important- ‘Sense’ or ‘Sensibility’?

So in the story I think it’s a balance between the two. Both characters start off on one extreme but then they become well rounded people by learning from the other. I think in real life I’m more of a Marianne than an Elinor, but obviously I do try and tone it down a bit! It’s all about finding balance.
You can catch up with Elinor and Marianne Take Barton on Youtube, with new episodes springing up weekly, and follow the show on Twitter @EMTB_Official or on Facebook.