Second banana no more

Ella Bruccoleri is a hard-working young British actress whose roles so far have been distinctly second banana. I’ve seen her as a winsome nun in Call the Midwife, a hapless debutante in the third season of Bridgerton, a perky murder victim in Ludwig (well—perky before the murder), and yet another nun in Paddington in Peru.

So Bruccoleri probably can relate to the character she’s set to play next—that hard-working, hapless, and distinctly second banana-ish (if not necessarily nun-like) Mary Bennet.

Last month, the BBC announced that Bruccoleri will play the Bennet family’s awkward, bookish middle child in The Other Bennet Sister, the upcoming ten-part, five-hour series based on Janice Hadlow’s 2020 novel. The well-reviewed book gives Mary--no longer a second banana!--a post-Pride and Prejudice adventure, complete with love story and personal growth.

In the BBC’s press release, Bruccoleri describes herself as “someone who has always related more to Mary than Lizzy” and opines that “beneath Mary's awkwardness and formality lies a woman longing for purpose and connection.” Which does not, I would argue, have much to do with the Mary of Austen’s book.

But no matter! We are in the land of fanfic here, and a green and pleasant land it is, too. Robert Schildhouse, the head of BritBox, the show’s US streamer, told Deadline that the adaptation “is exactly the kind of intelligent, character-driven, and distinctly British storytelling BritBox audiences love.” (“Distinctly British storytelling”? Does that mean “with cute accents”?)

The Other Bennet Sister was scheduled to begin shooting in Wales earlier this month and could debut in the UK, and possibly even in the US, before the end of this Austen 250 year. Naturally, I’ll be tuning in, because Jane Austen. And also because I like intelligent, character-driven storytelling, no matter what the accents.