Audible’s star-studded Pride and Prejudice does Austen proud

Now Audible has joined in with an audio Pride and Prejudice. This is what used to be called a radio play: not a reading of the book, but an audio adaptation of it. And this version, too, is properly star-studded. Marisa Abela plays Lizzy, Harris Dickinson, Mr Darcy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Mrs Bennet, and Bill Nighy, Mr Bennet – plus Will Poulter, Jessie Buckley and even Glenn Close take other plum roles.

After just five minutes’ listening, you can see why. This version, directed by Dionne Edwards, is extremely good: lively, funny, engaging, well paced. Lulu Raczka’s script is super-smart, with no narrator to bring you out of the action, no clunky exposition. Instead, everything is discovered – as it should be – through conversation and noises off. We hear a newspaper being folded as Mr Bennet gives his opinion, the tapping of shoes across a hall, the whoosh as an outer door opens into a quiet interior.

The original music, by Morgan Kibby, is lovely. Such care for sound extends to how the voices are placed. Lizzy, played with light, exasperated wit by Abela, is subtly foregrounded, and this, along with the actors’ excellent characterisation, means we can follow who is who without even really thinking about it. Dickinson – who I initially worried was playing against type – brings humour to Darcy. His first comment is a posh grunt, which made me laugh. Amazing how even grunts can have an accent.

I am, broadly, an Austen refusnik. Usually, I can’t bring myself to care about the Bennet sisters’ predicament – not even charismatic, modern Lizzy. I’m like Mr Bennet, except I’m exasperated even more quickly by the flapping and concerns of the “silliest girls in the country”. But this version is so well done, so delightful, that I gobbled up the entire series in a couple of days. The Netflix adaptation will have to be excellent to beat this.

There are more feminine concerns in the interview series How to Get Wet When You’re Dry. Hosted by the journalist Anna Wolfe, this is, essentially, a show about the dating and sexual problems that the newly sober – and, in fact, anyone – can come up against when socialising and trying to find love. Some of her interviewees are in recovery and make a mixed bunch of interesting people, including the actor-comedian Margaret Cho, MakeLoveNotPorn founder Cindy Gallop and the musician Seye Adelekan.

Wolfe is a charming presenter but a bit undisciplined, like the show itself, occasionally breezing over something that needs context: Cho mentions that, at the age of seven, she saw “unsheathed dicks” more than three times a week; Wolfe doesn’t get any more details as to why this was happening. She gushes about her interviewees’ achievements instead of asking questions.

But the series has insight and warmth in there and, with tighter production, it could become a great podcast. Sex is a fascinating topic and recovered addicts make the most interesting interviewees.

Photograph by Alamy