The Watsons, Harold Pinter Theatre

You know all about Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, but what about The Watsons? Jane Austen's unfinished novel is a source of fascination for academics, who have been left to ponder the fate of heroine Emma Watson and the outcome of her quest to marry well.

The incomplete story gets an ending courtesy of Olivier-winning playwright Laura Wade (Posh, Home I'm Darling) in her post-modern play The Watsons. It transfers to The West End's Harold Pinter Theatre after impressing at first Chichester Festival Theatre, then the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Incorporating playful meta-theatre into the Regency romance, the drama follows eligible, elegant Emma Watson (no connection to Hermione Granger). Cut off by her rich aunt, she must marry swiftly to avoid a future of spinsterhood and poverty. Austen's unfinished manuscript never tells us whether Miss Watson chooses the handsome cad, the wealthy bachelor or the earnest vicar to be her husband, but the author sister subsequently suggested that it was supposed to be the serious clergyman.

Wade uses this unlikely ending as a way in to the text, as the playwright herself begins to participate in the drama and interact with the characters.

Samuel West directs a lively production, which was hailed as 'bursting with ideas' and fizzing with life by critics at the Chichester opening.

Tickets for The Watsons West End transfer are now on sale. Click here to book now.