1 9 8 3 (UK)
6 x 50 minute episodes
When Fanny Price (Sylvestra Le Touzel) arrives at her snobbish Uncle’s country estate, she is treated more like a servant than a niece.
The one person she can turn to is her cousin Edmund (Nicholas Farrell) but when Miss Mary Crawford (Jackie Smith-Wood) arrives in Mansfield Park, Fanny’s love for Edmund seems doomed.
The attractiveness and wittily cynical humour of the Crawford siblings Mary and Henry (Robert Burbage) acts as a refreshing contrast to Fanny and Edmund’s moral righteousness.
The Crawfords’ flawed but obvious appeal seems to suggest that Jane Austen had a certain sympathy for their more liberal outlook.
The ostensibly ‘happy ending’ is Fanny and Edmund’s rejection of the Crawfords for their own shared faith and integrity. At the same time, however, we are slyly encouraged to celebrate the Crawfords’ lucky escape from marital partners who would suppress and inhibit them.
Fanny Price
Sylvestra Le Touzel
Edmund Bertram
Nicholas Farrell
Mrs Norris
Anna Massey
Sir Thomas Bertram
Bernard Hepton
Mary Crawford
Jackie Smith-Wood
Henry Crawford
Robert Burbage
Lady Bertram
Angela Pleasence
