Behind the Scenes of “Becoming Meg Dashwood” with Emma Thompson, Erin Doherty & more🎙️｜ Audible UK

That night, those girls unleashed a wild spirit, and Meg Dashwood was truly born. It's 15 years since Sense and Sensibility ended. Margaret, she is the younger sister we all think we know, but this is kind of peeling back those layers. I have about as much interest in society's expectations as I have that frilly halfwit sitting uninvited at my kitchen table. It is the internal development of Meg that really is the driver of becoming Meg Dashwood. As soon as Audible said we're thinking about writing something about Margaret Dashwood, I was like, oh, well, she needs to be feminist, and she should probably be queer. I, Meg Dashwood. Do take thee freedom and liberty. To be all that I am wedded to. In that moment, there is sparks flying. Mostly when Austen adaptations happen, there's a kind of empty space between our culture and hers, and so it's wonderful to see one of her characters coming into contact with these new ideas. I held up my arms from where I lay for her to lift me. I cannot pick you up for heaven's sakes. Oh. Besides, you are a grown woman. It made a lot of sense to bring this story into the modern day. It's such a modern, timeless story. I want to keep those archaic sounds but mixed with, like, beats and momentum and youth and energy and vitality in that sort of more modern way. It's one of those projects that you're like, ah, this is gonna be pretty special. It's so glorious, and I'm so chuffed to be a little bit, a little bit of it. Who wouldn't want to be part of this story and a part of this, this retelling and this taking it forward? It's hard to recall the moment my pleasure story truly began. Ah, yes. Aged 29. I have had enough, Eleanor. Why is it no longer possible to have a pleasant family lunch without mamas bringing an eligible bachelor on me? Becoming Meg Dashwood is, you could say, a sequel to Sense and Sensibility. Meg Dashwood in the book and in the film is a girl of around 11. At the beginning of becoming Meg Dashwood, we catch up with her. She's 29. She should have been married a decade ago. And her mum's bringing all the suitors that she can find. Meg is not playing ball. Here we are in the dining room of Barton Cottage. Meg's left. She left. She'd had enough. But every single member of her, female member of her family have intervened to get her back in and sitting down for lunch. And the reason for all of this is, of course, Francis Coombe. Thank you very much, Alex. Who is, I think it's safe to say, a mini. Wow. Your words, not mine. Francis has come to woo Meg. It's not going great. But he thinks it is. Lovely. All right. I think we should just have a practice, have a go. Margaret Dashwood, you are becoming old. You are older than I. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But I am a man. You are hardly beautiful and your hair is in disarray. But you would be perfectly agreeable if you scowled less. Is it possible to cringe oneself into extinction? Besides, you look to be a good breeder. I watched my hand in horror as it grabbed a fistful of fresh cream and peaches and hurled it right at his smug head. We pick up with Meg embarking on this journey of rebellion against the social norms. You're exposed immediately to this unwavering spirit within this woman that I don't think even she has the ability to say no to. Like, it's like this uncontrollable force. Margaret is someone who is unsure as yet of her sexuality because she's young, but she's also realising that she's not like her sisters. She certainly doesn't want marriage. This is rather zealous, dear. Is it Beethoven? No, my own composition. A requiem for my engagement prospects. I should like for us to talk. She has to say to her daughter, look, is it you're 29 or whatever? You have to get married. A woman in this day and age has to be married for any kind of security. That is horrific. I cannot comprehend why on earth would any woman want to put herself in that position. Because wealth can change a woman's well-being in an instant. And the most instantaneous way is to marry into it. Marianne did exactly that. Married into wealth. She lives in a house so big even whispers echo in it. Has her well-being improved? She barely speaks to the colonel and when she does, it's tinged with malice. Hello, hello. Hello, darling. I suggest we go back and do the voiceover on those scenes before I forget that we haven't done it. Okay. When I was 13 years old, I watched something happen to my sister. It happened in the rain, as romance would have you believe it often does. When Marianne was first carried into our cottage by Willoughby, both were soaked through and chilled to the bone. But she radiated in a light. I had seen it happen but had never understood it. Emma Thompson plays older Meg. So she's Meg in her 50s. And she's speaking to her younger self. She's speaking from a place of wisdom and a place of security and happiness. Margaret and Meg are the same woman. Meg is someone who Margaret creates and then steps into. Meg is who she really is. Rebecca's writing is so, so good and so interesting. And she gave Margaret such interesting things to say, such interesting things to experience. I was on fire and it raged. A longing pulled at my inside so vehemently, it threatened to turn me inside out. And I willed it to, that I might throw my heart, my organs and all that makes me mortal at the feet of this god. I think the thing that I was so taken by the first time that I heard her read it out loud is just her understanding so, so clearly Margaret's rage. So much of Austen is being contained. And I wanted to write a heroine that learns that the containment is the problem. It was a joy to direct and make something with because that's what it feels like. Gorgeous. All right. Once more from the same place. Thank you very much. And is the level right, chaps? In terms of drama and acting? Acting is the acting, right? We're getting the acting, right? Just checking, you know. I mean, let's try one where we go even more heightened. Even more heightened. So at one point, Mrs Jennings sends her an invitation to come to London because she said, oh, it's probably because the men in Devon are really boring and Margaret's really interesting. So she should come to London and meet a man. Ow! Just the carpals, try to hold on. I am so tired of being primped and trussed up only to sit politely, smile and fall. Here's a wild idea. Have you tried being your true self? I have. Men loathe her. Ah. I wonder if she would have run a dating app agency. She's a busybody. She likes to get people paired together. She likes love and romance. In the film, Imelda plays Mrs Jennings' daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte's not in this. So it felt really, really natural to ask Imelda to come and play Mrs Jennings. We just saw it recently. So it was a bit of a sob fest, I have to say. But just to revisit this again is what you cherish is the language and the energy and the intelligence of the new writing of this is just wonderful to be part of. If you've got the writing, that is 95% of the work done for you. But then you get the fun of having to be in a carriage and you are literally doing things like, you know, I've got to keep moving as I'm talking, things like that. And that's technically challenging. And that's always that's always good to do. You know, you hear that carriage scene and other people here and you all imagine it differently. And that's what's great in a world that is just crammed with images, which doesn't allow the imagination to form its own pictures. This is what you, you know, this is where you can do that. Bex, do you want to say anything about where this song falls in our story? Yeah, sure. Margaret Dashwood has arrived in London. She's gotten pissed at a party. She's gotten chucked out. And she's found herself in Soho, which is actually by way of a theatre, which she's gone into quite pissed and fallen in love with a man on stage, instantly in love with him, passes out and gets taken to this house in the middle of Soho, which is incredibly dangerous place back then. But all these women live there in this commune. There's three of them that live there together. They've all made a vow to be unmarried because they don't believe in it and they don't believe in being possessed by a man. To the wildest and freest, the salt of our hearts riding out to sea. And we cradle the whispers we hear of all sisters that fly in the fiery air. To the newest bride of freedom! Meg meets three women in Soho. So you have Hester, who works at a factory. You have Inga, who is a sex worker. And you have Nelly, who's an actress. Sir Henry would rather die than be a centre of a scandal. And as for Ambrose, well, risking a prison sentence for a part. Nobody wants Lady Macbeth that much. I feel as though you might risk prison. You are right. I would risk death for Lady N. Nelly is a young, ambitious actress who, I think, potentially lets some of her ambition get in the way of other things that are as important in her life. But she's full of life. She's really fun and she's got a lot of passion. I knew that I really wanted Nelly to be an actress because I wanted her to have a sort of double life. But I don't even think that I was prepared for the Me Too aspect of this. And as soon as I found out, I was like, we have to lean in. We have to lean in because everyone needs to talk about the fact that it hasn't changed. You burn chamomile and juniper to protect the home. You'd think you'd all be a little more grateful. Masu, endure this. It's so early. It is vital our dreams are aired in the moments before dawn breaks so that we throw them into the light and watch them expand as the sun does throughout the year. And I have to leave for work in 40 minutes. So we say what we want. Is that it? Yes, that is more or less it. I want money. Money, money, money. Enough money to live the life I was put on this earth to live. Inga is a sex worker. I wanted her to be stunningly beautiful and for it to just make absolute sense to her that she could make a fortune as a sex worker. And for that to be something that felt really powerful to her. It feels really new because the female main characters of this story, of our story, live in a completely different world. They decide for themselves, for their lives. And yeah, they are no longer just the wives of, the sisters of, and the daughters of. They're independent. And yeah, that's what we celebrate in this book. But to have been hurt and to have had the self-respect to overcome it. Is powerful. So I have nothing to fear. In a way, she's a witch. She's connected to the roots, to the earth. And she's got a spiritual connection. She loves tarot cards. She's just got a good instinct for people. I wrote Hester for Jess. I've known her for years. It's only later that you discover sort of her history and her story and how she's always carrying that with her. You just need someone who knows how to give that lightness and shade. This is a lovely scene where Meg is kind of initiated into the den. They make this promise together of solidarity. It just felt so great to be kind of in the room alongside Natasha, who has composed this kind of galvanizing anthem. It's really great to see you. The way they would have done it in that day. And we won't buckle under the weight. You've got a lot of... All of that. So we're not softening and doing the American sounding something. Yeah. And we cradle the whispers we hear Of all sisters that fly in the fiery air Let them all hear this promise tonight All right, as we sing, as we sing, as we sing, as we sing, as we sing, as we sing Yeah! Yes! I love that bit as well. And we were doing it weren't we? Being like run out of breath. It's fine. Run out of breath. Like, keep going and going. You know. Bark like dogs. What do you need to do? No wonder we all felt something. She's just had the bottle and like stood on the table and gone, this is what we're ******* about. We wanted like it to feel like that women have always lived in this house, like it's always been a house full of women and they come and they go and whatever, but like they're invoking the spirits of all these women that live there and then they sort of can't stop coming and see the war. I had a studio that had all sorts of archaic instruments because I wanted creaky, breathing or metallic instruments as part of the sound. I wanted us to mix that with like 808 drums and really modern sounding electronic instruments and that's kind of the Bat Flushes sound, it has always been sort of a bit of a combination of those things anyways. We had a playlist with like the gossip and LCD sound system and you know, musicians like that on it, mixed with Ravel and some really interesting opera and things. It made a lot of sense to bring this story into the modern day, it's such a modern, timeless story. The actual theme was maybe one of the second or third ones we did and I wanted it to be bodily, I wanted it to be like her breaths, her like intimate kind of way of expressing herself musically with her body and then there's these like really happy piano stabs that kind of express that freedom and that, it's like the coming of age story isn't it, so there's real joy in that. What made this different was that Meg is an actual pianist in real life and so some of the scenes where Meg's playing in the scene and then she gets interrupted and then she's emoting through her piano playing or something, I was kind of feeling like I was more an actress than a musician or a composer in those moments. That was an unusual experience for me, I haven't sort of done that before. Oh! Do not sneak up on me! What are you doing in here alone? Everyone has left. I sometimes need to investigate how I am feeling. Meaning? Sometimes when my mind is yet to form the thought, music helps to... doesn't matter. Do you mean to tell me that was your own creation? Yes, but it is nothing. Nothing? Meg, you were channeling pure creative spirit, do it again! That argument that Nelly didn't allow to become an argument is maybe the closest that either of them have tacitly got to something approaching, acting on their feelings. There is an unknown world contained between the two of you. There haven't been many stories about Regency era lesbians and obviously it's because those stories haven't been told, haven't been written because they had to be hidden. And it helped us to imagine how terrifying that must have been. What bow have I already broken? You promised Meg Dashwood! She charged up to me, wet hair plastered to her face and forefinger pointed in accusation. Wood smoke and wet roses furled around us. You promised never to make my life difficult! The relationship of someone, even someone as brave and as mould-breaking as Meg to shame, it's very familiar and the delight of seeing a story that allows that and acknowledges that in a younger person whilst also upholding and enabling us to see that our older, wiser selves can totally outgrow that and outlive it. I mean baby queer Jo needed to know that and 40 year old Jo does know it and I can't wait to know it even more as Emma Thompson does on Into My Fifties and Beyond. We had done work beforehand, we were able to come into the space and inhabit it with relative ease and that's got an awful lot to do with the company, with Jo, the director, with being audible, which makes it all so familiar and familial, it feels very easy so you can just rush into a lesbian sex scene with no preparation whatsoever and feel quite comfortable, enjoy it even. She's much improved since your return. Before she had all but stopped making suggestions of women I might marry. Now she is very much back in business. Oh I know how that feels, luckily she thinks me a lost cause by now. A middle aged myopic doctor with a dead wife, quite the catch. Well more so than an ageing spinster who disappeared for almost a decade. Greg plays Dr Keats, I really wanted there to be a character who as Margaret softens really and develops as herself, she realises men aren't all bad. What's glorious is this year is the 30th anniversary of the film so the fact that Beck's written is this wonderful imagined life of all the characters and the character I play, there's a certain I suppose atonement in a way for me because I'm now playing a nice character in the sequel to it all. Emma and I have not worked together in 30 years so to share a microphone together will be lovely. It's an incredible inspiring experience to record an audio with such an amazing and huge cast because there is this certain and special energy in the room and everybody, everyone contributes to it. I mean 250 years, wow, since Jane Austen was born and still now people are connecting to her books and material and it shows how timeless she is but maybe also there is a bit of a sadness to that because there are still struggles happening even now and that's why we can relate so much to her portrayal, especially of her female characters. I think she would be gobsmacked that even now people are still reading her work and then taking it and turning it into something new. I think she'd be pretty pleased. If women want to tell their stories they must write them so I feel like Beck is uncovering a journey that must have been there all the time that Austen was alive. Women must have been discovering themselves in this way and going and feeling terrible. My inspiration for taking on the job and continuing on in my own sort of thoughts is we must write, we must write and write and write. There are so many themes that I wanted to explore throughout this but the main one is who we're told we are versus who we actually are. There's an emotional truth to it but there's also a really kind of politically fun thing happening which is that you only get more powerful and you only get more pleasure as you grow older and that for women particularly is a hell of an idea.