Dating apps, booze and clubbing

You are in a sweaty nightclub in Essex. You will be beaten. And your best friend is trying to solve your love life. Jane Austen’s Emma, ​​but not as you know.

For those who are inexperienced, the 1815 novel follows the fascinating life of our hero in Regency England interferes with the relationships of his friends (or matching depending on your perspective).

Emma Woodhouse still has all the trademarks of our beloved original hero, fast intelligence, mixed, arrogant and sometimes ruthless in the new adaptation of Ava Pickhett’s Rose Theater in London.

However, instead of navigating in Pickett’s modern Emma, ​​community balls and dowry, he furnished his friends who returned home after he failed his exams at Oxford University.

Emma is the first person from his family to university and is not about to come to his father, the proud working -class father who suddenly returned.

Pickett from Clacton at Essex was one of the first people who went to university in his family.

Although he finished his degree, he says he was “a failure” and then he’s a “defensive” when he returns home and could not find a job (who has been educated as an actor). This, “it has emerged as relying and over -reassuring how everyone should live and how to live and how they should be.” “And I think most of them play with Emma.”

At the age of 31, Pickett makes a name for himself as one of the most productive and talented young writers in England. He wrote scripts for TV drains, including Sky’s Brassic and BBC’s Ten Pound Poms, staged his first play at the Almeida Theater in London, and writes a film about Baz Luhrmann and Joan of Arc.

He tells me that Rose, who runs the game before he approached Christopher Haydon before he approached Emma, ​​is connected after he started.

“I really defined this feeling [being] 21. Very young, but at the peak of adulthood. He believes that he knows everything about everyone’s life and what to do to reach happiness. He reminded me very much at that age. “

Austen definitely spends a moment (not because it is really far). This year points to the 250th anniversary of his birth and we enjoyed the BBC TV series Miss Austen in recent years. Anya Taylor Joy’s EMMA’s Film Adaptationand West End’s Clueless Musical (based on the cult 90s young film adaptation of Emma, ​​which Pickkett calls “masterpiece”).

There is also a new adaptation of the pride and prejudice played by Emma Corrin, who comes to Netflix.

Pickett says he wants to make a contemporary adaptation of Emma rather than a period version.

This Emma (played by Amelia Kenworthy) and love interest is more likely to spend more free time than sipping tea or applying the piano from China, including George Knightley (Kit Young).

And here you always have half an hour or online dating profile and your potential matches obsessed (or we should call suitors).

Pickett, “This is very cruel because I think that the applications can really make addictive, so you can verify how many likes you like, how many matches you get … This becomes a kind of game … So many of your own value comes from a number on your screen.”

“The idea of ​​greating someone is really, it can be really cruel,” he adds.

“According to my experience, many young men also found practices toxic … They maintain a value system that does not value human complexity or oddity.”

“This production shows that technology is just another lens of confusion, because someone misunderstands. We have much more facilities for communication, but this is actually the chaos of everything.”

His character is a stable being in Emma’s life, and George is a more similar age than the book, which is about 17 years older.

Pickett explains: “I wasn’t really interested in being an ingénue.”

Young adds: “George is very smart, very smart. He doesn’t hate where it comes from and it’s quite comfortable there.

“The only person who grinds his gears is Emma. You can definitely love someone and hate someone at the same time.”

Kenworthy, who plays the leader, sympathizes with his character.

“Every choice he makes is trying to help people, and scattered and complex. But his heart is in the right place.

Harriet (Sofia Oxenham), who has longed been to Emma’s long -suffer, stayed away while reading Emma, ​​and has a more round and important role in Pickett’s version than the novel.

“I really love writing friendships because I think it’s great but ruthless and difficult.

One of the most famous quotes of Austen, with the permission of Emma, ​​who tells Harriet: “You must be the best judge of your own happiness” (ironicly before talking to the farmer Robert Martin to give up an offer because of his own snob).

“I really wanted to dig too much. Something Emma should learn,” Pickett says.

The author hopes that Austen’s universal attractiveness will turn into viewers after more than 200 years after Emma’s first publication.

“Human situation is still the same in many ways. Jealousy is jealousy. Love is love.”

Emma is at Rose Theater in Kingston in London from 17 September to 11 October 2025.