Alert Janeite Laurel Ann sent us an article from the Guardian that suggests some, uh, alternative adaptations to Jane Austen’s novels…

Scents and Sentimentality
This one-off ITV drama deals with an episode in Jane Austen’s life when she visited a drapery shop. As Jane attempted to buy handkerchiefs and perfume, the draper (a dark fellow with an aquiline nose) adopted an unnecessarily haughty tone.

Scents and Sentimentality 2
It turns out that he was only working as a draper in the hope of meeting a modest wife before inheriting his uncle’s vast estate! But Jane never discovers this, because she doesn’t need any more handkerchiefs.

Hyde Park
In this lavish film by Working Title, Jane Austen goes for a walk in Hyde Park where a shy yet wealthy curate tries to buy her an ice cream. This true-life experience (referred to briefly by Austen in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1803) came to a sad end when she misunderstood the stammering clergyman, took great umbrage and hurried away. Julia Roberts takes the leading role, with Rowan Atkinson as the curate.

Enema
It is known that Jane Austen suffered various physical ailments, possibly some kind of glandular problem, and took regular trips to the healing waters of Bath. What was not known (until the launch of this $80m, 24-part series from the Histor-Tainment Network of California, starring Beyonce Knowles as Jane) is that she once visited an avant-garde young doctor in search of treatment. The doctor’s proposed methods so horrified our delicate spinster that she never returned to Bath, thus never learning that the ‘doctor’ was in fact a duke who adored her from afar and could think of no other way to make her acquaintance.

Coat hanger Abbey
Universal Pictures presents a heartbreaking tale, based on a little-known event in Jane Austen’s life when she was invited to dine at an imposing residence in Oxfordshire. The novelist (played here by Will Ferrell in a fat suit) detected a tone of condescending pride from the man who helped her off with her coat, and, deeply offended at such inappropriate behaviour from a butler, called immediately for her carriage. By the time she realised that she had mistaken the abbey’s rich bachelor owner for a servant, it was too late and he had married her cousin.

Laurel Ann wrote that she liked Coat hanger Abbey the best…so do we. (Again–can’t be much worse than…you know what.)