Ten wonderful days of celebrating all things Austen in the beautiful city of Bath

Friday 28th March, 2025

March 2025, Jane Austen Festival Newsletter

To all our dear fellow Austen-fans,

Be not alarmed on receiving this newsletter by the apprehension of its containing any hint of the sale date for September events. We will not yet be announcing when our September events will go on sale, so like Jane Bennet anxiously waiting at Longbourn for news of wayward Wickham and Lydia, you will have to remain in uncertainty a little longer. Please rest assured that we are working hard and offer our heartfelt gratitude for the Anne Elliot-like patience and endurance our followers are showing as we put together the biggest Jane Austen Festival yet.

Patience must be rewarded though, so we thought we'd share a few exciting announcements with you today...

Firstly, we are delighted to announce that the theme for the Regency Soiree & Pump Rooms Ball on 19th September will be Celestial. 

Like Fanny and Edmund star-gazing in Mansfield Park, look to the skies for your costume inspiration!

Furthermore, we are spoiling you in 2025 with yet another ball!

There will be an additional ball at the Pump Rooms on Wednesday 17th September, starting at 20:00, including dinner and dancing. Because- as all Jane Austen Festival fans know- on Wednesdays we wear pink, we will be continuing this theme into the evening so this will be our Regency Rose Ball.

Rumours may have reached many of you of how our Summer and Yuletide Ball tickets disappeared in minutes, like a wedding cake being gobbled up by Perry children. In order to ensure that as many people as possible get to join us for a dance event over the first weekend during 2025, the ticketing system for the first weekend balls will only allow you to choose one of the five dance events over the Friday 12th, Saturday 13th & Sunday 14th. 

Next, we know that some people would rather sit round the edges of a ball room than grace the dance floor. For you, our dear friends, we are overjoyed to announce that on Monday 15th September at 17:30, we will be hosting Jane Austen’s Assemblies – a narrated Regency dance performance.

‘Sit back and let the Jane Austen Dancers transport you to the various venues where Jane Austen’s characters enjoyed dancing and socialising. 

Enjoy watching an 'impromptu dance at home', a 'public assembly' or two (there were five in Northanger Abbey!) and an invitation-only 'private ball', such as at Netherfield. We have also obtained vouchers for Almack’s of London, “the seventh heaven of the fashionable world”, which neither Jane Austen nor her characters managed!

Taking her books and screen productions as inspiration for a visual treat of Country Dances, Reels, Quadrilles and Cotillions, enriched with quotes from her books, we also explain the subtle etiquette rules of each venue. Plus, the option of joining in one or two dances..’

But enough about dancing- we know that many of you would infinitely prefer a book… or event, all six Jane Austen books in one sitting! We are thrilled to be offering you the opportunity to watch all the novels (...in some form or another) in the theatrical The Complete Works of Jane Austen (Abridged). 

'One newbie and two self-professed Janeites, through almost all means imaginable, tackle the entire canon of Jane Austen’s works – in just 90 minutes.

Come along for a fun, funny, and fast-paced romp through the masterpieces of Jane Austen with The Complete Works of Jane Austen, Abridged. Three nimble actors take on all of Austen’s beloved heroines, friends, and love interests—and her incisive social satire—in just 90 minutes. It is a truth universally acknowledged that an audience in possession of high spirits must be in want of a ticket to this big-hearted comedy that will delight Janeites and newcomers alike.'

Read a review here, or -even better- come and view it yourself in The Mission Theatre, on the evening of Thursday 18th September, or for a matinee or evening performance on Friday 19th September. 

If you relish the chance to sit back and watch a speed-version of one of Austen’s novels, we are also pleased to present Potted Pride & Prejudice on Tuesday 16th September. With the whole story in under 50 minutes, we’ll be showing this production twice in the evening, as Pride and Prejudice is always such a favourite!

Until we meet in the sunny streets of Bath, all the very best of wishes,

The Jane Austen Festival Team
Bath, UK