I had a very enjoyable trip to the theatre last night to see Theatre Royal Bath's version of Pride & Prejudice. There was clever use of minimal props, and the text was by and large Jane Austen's words.

I know the book so well that I was fascinated to observe how Simon Reade had edited it down to just 2 hours 10 minutes on stage yet – as Jane Austen almost said – "In essentials, I believe it was very much what it ever was." Some useful tips there for this editor!

If you are an Austen fan thinking about writing for publication, have a look at Prime & Predigest, my edit of the book from the Spring 03 issue of Speech & Language Therapy in Practice.