Rachel Parris: Austensibly Feminist

Comedian Rachel Parris, a Jane Austen fan and geek, assesses one of our greatest writer's feminist credentials.

Although Jane Austen wrote about a particular class of women at a particular period in our history , the portraits she drew have resonated with millions of subsequent readers. But rarely is she considered from a feminist perspective.

In this stand-up comedy show recorded in front of a live, virtual audience, Rachel Parris asks us to re-appraise Jane Austen's work and see it in a new light. Albeit a little irreverently.

Do Austen's books pass the Bechdel test? What do her sisters tell us about the sisterhood? What have her women got in common with women today and what can we learn from what Jane Austen had to say about marriage, men and money?

With:

Jason Forbes
Gemma Whelan

Written by Rachel Parris and Katie Storey

Producer: Alison Vernon Smith

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2021.