Jane Austen and pop classics meet on the Eastbourne stage

Men, money and microphones will be fought over in an irreverent but affectionate adaptation of the Austen classic where the stakes couldn’t be higher when it comes to romance – alongside which we will get a string of pop classics including Young Hearts Run Free, Will You Love Me Tomorrow and You’re So Vain.

Playing Elizabeth Bennett is Emmy Stonelake who is delighted to carry with her an endorsement (or otherwise) which could be taken either way. Emmy, however, is delighted to consider it a huge compliment.

“I didn't know Jane Austen at all. I didn't know the book at all. I was schooled in Welsh language in Wales and we certainly didn't study Jane Austen but I'd seen some of the films and my mother was a bit of a fan and I'm certainly aware of Keira Knightley in the role.”

Not that Amy is basing herself on that: “One night during an understudy run in Edinburgh, my wife was in the audience and she overheard someone speaking in the toilets. When you get an Edinburgh audience, it is all usually very quite polite and my wife overheard someone saying ‘Hmmm, an unlikely Elizabeth Bennett!’ and I just thought to myself ‘Well, I will take that!’ I suppose it depends how it was said but I’m deciding that it was said admiringly!”

As for the show: “It's like the greatest hits together with the most memorable characters and I am part of the new cast that took over. I was understudying before Christmas and then we had two lovely new cast members and two new understudies join us in January. And I love the show. I auditioned for Darcy and for Mrs Bennett and I've ended up playing Liz. She's a great character to play. She is proud and she's pretty ballsy – and she is well read so that's where the comparison with me stops! But she's also brave and she is witty and she's funny and she's quick and she's intelligent but at heart she is also a romantic deep down though she doesn't show it at first perhaps.

“The show’s conception really started with a bunch of mates who were acting graduates and it began at a 200-seater theatre in Glasgow. It began in a very small way pre-producer, pre-West End, pre-Olivier Award. It just began in a very humble way with a bunch of friends having a laugh and just doing a modern retelling.

"The point is that the characters are all people that you will recognise, and the lovely thing is that you can hear them gasp in the audience with the twists and turns in the plot. I think that's the case with the story, that it really does take you to interesting places, and what is so lovely is that this is a brand-new take, a very modern take on one of the great classics. We're an all-female cast playing all the characters and it makes it quite an original take. Most of us are queer women at a similar age and at a similar point in our career and it's been great fun.”

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