In the year we celebrate the 250th anniversary of celebrated British novelist, Jane Austen, her 1815 novel, Emma is getting a modern re-telling in a new stage adaptation from Ava Pickett. 210 years after its first publication, the work that is still love by readers across the globe takes Emma from Regency England to the nightclubs and online dating of the modern world as she navigates university.
Kit Young who plays the love interest George Knightly, alongside Amelia Kenworthy’s Emma, explained: “This production really showcases that technology is just another lens of confusion, because someone can… get it wrong. We have much more facility for communication, but that doesn’t mean that we communicate any better and… that’s actually the chaos of it all.”
This fresh take on the classic novel plays at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London, from 17 September until 11 October 2025 and is written by Ava Pickett, a talented young writer known for penning scripts for TV dramas including Sky’s Brassic and BBC’s Ten Pound Poms, and had her début play 1536 stager at London’s Almeida Theatre. She admits, however, that she had not read Emma until she was approached by the play’s director Christopher Hayden for the Rose. She soon became one of the many readers to fall in love with the Austen’s novel though.
Pickett said: “I really identified with that feeling of [being] 21. She’s so young, but is on the cusp of adulthood. She believes she knows everything about everyone else’s life and what they need to do in order to get to happiness. She reminded me so much of me at that age.”
Talking about her adaptation, she added: “I really love writing female friendships because I think they are wonderful but brutal and difficult. No-one teaches you at school that it’s work to stay friends for a long time.
“I really wanted to dig into that a lot. It’s something Emma has to learn.
“The human condition is, in lots of ways, still the same. Jealousy is jealousy. Love is love.”
