In a moment of meta self-awareness that makes Colin Firth's cameo as himself in the second Bridget Jones novel seem completely natural, one of Bridget's biggest fans is this vlogging Lizzie Bennet who must surely notice the parallels between her life and that of the Helen Fielding's character, not to mention her chosen diary-style form of disseminating it. The brain child of Hank (Vlog Brother of Fault In Our Stars author John) Green, although most of the creative work is actually done by writer-director Bernie Su, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is not just a sharp update of Austen's story to contemporary America (described in The Guardian as "the best Austen adaptation around"), it also manages to convince that YouTube genuinely has potential as a new storytelling medium in a way that few other series on this platform have achieved. The expanding popularity and budget of the series allowed for an organic spread of its scale and focus at just the right point, going from simply Ashley Clements' Lizzie talking to her camera in her bedroom with occasional appearances from her sisters (like Bride And Prejudice reduced to the three core characters, although Kitty crops up as a house pet and Mary as the emo cousin) to a set of interlinked blog series with different characters and locales. Turning Wickham into a buff dude-bro on the swim team and Darcy into a condescending hipster in a bow tie makes for fun adaptations of the male leads that enjoyably focus as much on their unappealing qualities as the good ones, but the nature of that gradually expanding structure means that this is a version of the story that's really all about the girls. This focus on the bonds of sisterhood and female friendship makes a refreshing change from other Pride And Prejudices and even makes for in some ways more nuanced versions of Lydia and Charlotte than their literary counterparts. So, there we have it, hours of Austen entertainment that should be just enough to get over the failure of the zombie crossover, and that's without getting onto Clueless and all the other adaptations of her other books.
