Emma first editions and Ayesha costume notes…

Deb’s Bygone Books Blog reports on two first editions of Emma at auction.  One is being presented by Swann Auction Galleries of New York, which included the following blurb with the lot’s online listing:

“First english edition. Austen had a falling out with her first publisher Egerton over publication of Mansfield Park and transferred to John Murray, who published the second edition of that title and the first edition of Emma on the same terms: each was published at the author’s expense, with profits to the author after payment of a 10% commission to the publisher. In keeping with Murray’s stated views on edition sizes, 2000 copies were printed. Emma is also the only one of Jane Austen’s novels to bear a dedication (to the Prince Regent). –Gilson A8.”

Also, a short article on Sonam Kapoor’s Ayesha wardrobe, from the Times of India:

“Sonam’s clothes for the movie have been designed by fashion designer Rehane. Though Rehane is not Delhi-based, she’s participated in fashion weeks in Delhi, and has also designed the clothes for Sonam in the movie. “I have actually done the western look for her. I was supposed to do the Indian look as well, but couldn’t because of my commitment to the fashion weeks that are to follow,” says the Chennai-based designer.”

I guess this means that Mona May isn’t working on the film after all?  Or perhaps she’s working on special pieces, as Rehane is only doing the “western” portion of Sonam’s wardrobe. 

Ayesha updates and Emma4 blurb…

Random articles about Ayesha:

Sonam Kapoor:

“South Delhi’s high society is just like that of Jane Austen’s England. After all, Delhi girls are forever obsessed with getting the right man, right family and right wedding clothes for their marriage.” (More…)

Romola Garai and Emma4:

“Starting on October 4, Romola will be seen as Jane Austen’s Emma in a four-part BBC TV drama.

‘Jane Austen famously said about her that she was someone she would like, but nobody else would ever want to be friends with,’ said Romola. ‘I’ve tried to make her, despite her many, many flaws, someone you would want to be friends with.'” (More…)

More on the Sonam Kapoor Emma

I keep seeing different title spellings for the Sonam Kapoor “Emma” adaptation.  Ayesha?  Aisha?  Blah.  Anyway, two more fluff pieces about the star…

‘Aisha’ a hen party: Sonam

Meet Delhi’s Emma

Sonam Kapoor talks about Ayesha

Your next film is an adaptation of Emma. Tell us something more about it.

I love Jane Austen’s novels. I was chatting with a friend about how Austen’s novels like Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma would make great women-centric films. Emma was Austen’s favourite book and heroine and she is the most realistic character that she wrote.Coincidentally, and soon after, I heard from a girl who went to UWC who said she had a script and wanted to talk to me for the part of Aisha. The film may be called Aisha, but it is a love story between two people that’s set in Delhi. It is being produced by Anil Kapoor Productions, directed by Rajshree Ojha (who earlier made Chaurahen and Badger), co-stars Abhay Deol and the crew has members from four countries.

Read the full interview here…


Mona May costumes another Emma-inspired film?

Times of India reports that Mona May, Clueless costume designer, is doing Sonam Kapoor’s wardrobe for Ayesha.

Emma News Roundup

To recap…

It appears that rumors about a new BBC version of Emma are true. In November, 2008, it was thought that BBC might have greenlighted a new, four-part Emma adaptation written by Sandy Welch. According to the rumors, it would air in 2009. The screenplay has apparently been on hold since the mid-1990s:

TV drama kings fall out over Jane Austen

The London Independent
Jul 14, 1996
By Clare Garner

 

It’s a saga that surpasses any literary classic: the rivalry of two television drama kings. And the prize is the latest Jane Austen TV spectacular.The winner – this time – is Nick Elliot, head of drama at the ITV network, who has just succeeded in the race to bring Austen’s Emma to the small screen. Not only that: he has lured away the whole production team responsible for the BBC’s world-beating version last year of Pride and Prejudice.The screenwriter Andrew Davies, the producer Sue Birtwistle and their back-up staff are taking their skills to the commercial channel and its story of Emma Woodhouse’s misplaced matchmaking. They were the team who brought to life on the BBC those perfect Georgian country house settings, lush costumes and formal dances that thrilled audiences around the world as they witnessed the wooing of the fiery Lizzie Bennet by the arrogant Mr Darcy.The loser is Michael Wearing, BBC head of drama serials,one of the corporation’s most talented executives and the man responsible for Pride and Prejudice.

He might have had the Davies-Birtwistle Emma as a world-beating sequel – indeed he was offered it – but he had already promised the adaptation to someone else. “It was a very, very difficult situation,” he said yesterday. “I had already commissioned Sandy Welch, one of our BBC writers, to do Emma. We really were in a fix.” He felt bound to honour his word.

When the P&P team offered the project to Elliot at ITV he grabbed it, and the TV world is aware of the piquancy of his triumph. Wearing and Elliot are two of the most bitter personal rivals in television. Two years ago Wearing lost half his BBC job as head of drama series and serials.

To head drama series, and to sharpen BBC popular drama, John Birt, the director-general, brought in the managing director of London Weekend Television, who had overseen London’s Burning and The Knock. His name was Nick Elliot.

Wearing resigned at once. But 150 staff in the drama department, including leading producers, signed a petition in protest and he was persuaded to stay. And it was Elliot who ended up leaving last year, after only nine months, amid rumours that he was less than happy with the Birt regime.

Wearing complains that Elliot was the man who approved BBC programmes dreamt up before his arrival, only to defect back to ITV. “I feel that quite a lot of what’s been on the screen this year is actually the product of the time before he came.

“That was the great joke in the drama department. He comes for nine months and walks off knowing the entire BBC development scheme. We’d put Emma into motion almost a year before it became clear than Andrew Davies was doing his version for Elliot.”

Elliot is unrepentant. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said yesterday. “At the height of its success with P&P the BBC was turning away their star producer and their star writer.”

The single-episode, pounds 2.5m film of Emma, the highlight of ITV’s autumn schedule, is being shot at the moment. It stars Kate Beckinsale as the headstrong heroine, plus Mark Strong (Tosker Cox in Our Friends in the North), Samantha Morton (Tracy in Band of Gold) and the character players Prunella Scales and Bernard Hepton.

But the drama between the rival executives is just as fascinating for those who know them.

A senior drama producer who saw them at the BBC said: “They are like chalk and cheese. There was Elliot in his suit, looking as if he could be selling widgets. He would call departmental briefings with slides and market research and tell us that BCs don’t like Cracker. By contrast, Wearing has never been known to hold a meeting with more than two people. He doesn’t look like an executive. He thinks of himself as a maverick, an artist fighting for quality drama with a political edge.”

Andrew Davies, Wearing’s friend and BBC protege for 20 years, is suffering mild culture shock from his defection. At just two hours, which with advertisements comes to 103 minutes, his adaptation has to be very tight. “I wish the actresses could have worn the ads on their dresses like footballers do, so we didn’t have to have commercial breaks,” he said yesterday.

 

Expenses are tighter at ITV too. “We don’t get chauffeur-driven cars – we have to ride bikes. It’s fish paste sandwiches. There’s no margin for excess. We have to buy our own champagne. We’re really suffering.”

There’s also a “Bollywood” Emma in the works.  According to BollySpice.com: “Anil Kapoor has announced that he will be producing a version of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ for [daughter Sonam] to star in…” Sonam Kapoor herself has publicly mentioned her desire to star in an Emma adaptation on at least one occasion. The Kapoors confirmed the film – titled “Ayesha” after its Emmalike heroine – in February, 2009. More details here and here.

Bollywood Emma

http://movies.iexplorehere.com/news/1488/Sonam-Kapoor-to-Play-the-Role-of-Emma.html

The project has started to take shape with Sonam Kapoor playing the lead alongside Abhay Deol and newcomer Arunoday Singh. The film will be directed by Rajshree Ojha.”