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Drama of the Week

Sense and Sensibility

Drama of the Week

BBC

Drama, Fiction

3.91.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Marianne and Elinor Dashwood are left near penniless after the death of their father. When they move to Devonshire, a new world of romantic possibility beckons. Starring Tamsin Greig, Madeleine Mantock and Rose Basista.

Sense and Sensibility is a tale of two sisters with wildly different hearts: one ruled by reason, the other by passion. But when love, loss, and scandal strike, Elinor and Marianne will learn that heartbreak is best faced together.

Radio 4 celebrates 250 years of Jane Austen with fresh, funny, and female-focused adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Expect heartbreak, hilarity, and the enduring power of sisterhood. Both dramas are narrated by Tamsin Greig as Austen herself.

CAST

Jane Austen ..... Tamsin Greig Elinor ..... Madeleine Mantock Marianne ..... Rose Basista John Willoughby ..... Ben Hardy Edward Ferrars ..... Enyi Okoronkwo Colonel Brandon ..... Richard Goulding Mrs Dashwood ..... Jasmine Hyde Margaret Dashwood ….. Ava Talbot Mrs Jennings ..... Carolyn Pickles Sir John ..... Clive Hayward Lucy Steele ..... Bethan Rose Young John Dashwood ..... Django Bevan Fanny Dashwood ..... Sasha McCabe

Production co-ordinator ..... Kate Gray Casting Manager ..... Alex Curran Sound ..... Andy Garratt, Neva Missirian and Sam Dickinson Dramatist ..... Claudine Toutoungi Director ..... Anne Isger

A BBC Studios Production

Claudine Toutoungi is a poet and playwright. Claudine's latest poetry collection is Emotional Support Horse (2024). Her other poetry collections are Smoothie (2017) and Two Tongues (2020), which won the Ledbury Prize for Second Collection. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish and her live poetry contributions to festivals include Tongue Fu, Poetry East and appearances on BBC Radio 4. Her plays for theatre include Bit Part and Slipping and her many audio dramas for BBC Radio 4 include Deliverers, The Inheritors and The Voice in my Ear.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.

0:07.2

Marianne has not the heart to tell Eleanor how worried she is by the lack of poetry in Edward's soul.

0:14.7

Tamzing Greg brings Jane Austen's work to life with pride and prejudice and sense and sensibility.

0:20.6

Reports soon follow that Mr Bingley is very agreeable.

0:24.4

And Julie Andrews narrates a new series, Jane Austen Stories.

0:28.9

You take delight in vexing me.

0:30.9

You have no compassion on my poor nerves.

0:33.7

Celebrate Jane Austen.

0:35.3

Listen on BBC Sounds.

0:40.0

This is Drama of the Week.

0:49.8

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, dramatised by Clodine Titungi, part one.

0:59.1

We all of us, at one time or another, face a great blow.

1:03.4

A moment so shattering it changes our whole world.

1:09.2

For the dashwards of Norland, Sussex, namely sisters, Eleanor, the cool-headed one,

1:14.9

Marianne, the passionate one, Margaret, a work in progress at 13,

1:20.2

and their mother, Mrs. Dashwood, second wife to her beloved Henry.

1:24.4

The great blow is the worst imaginable.

1:26.3

I filled the water jug, Eleanor.

1:28.8

Good, though he may be too weak to drink.

1:35.9

And comes one unassuming May morning when Henry Dashwood finds himself on his deathbed.

1:37.5

Is that your mother, Eleanor?

1:39.5

It is I, Marianne, father.

...

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