By Anya Ryan

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Austen purists beware: Ava Pickett’s modern-day take on Emma may well give you palpitations. And sure, all the social media chat and nightclub outings do feel a little on the nose. But if you can look past the obvious attempts to drag the story into the present and instead lean into Pickett’s natural flair for comedy, you’re in for a lively and often downright hysterical night.

Welcome to Highbury, 2025. Emma should be graduating from Oxford, but after flunking her exams, she’s been reluctantly forced back home to her working-class family. So, what else is there to do but meddle in everyone else’s business? Just as in Austen’s classic, she’s brilliant but obnoxious; quick-witted but petulant, too. Dishing out bad advice at every turn, she soon spins a web of misplaced affections and chaos – all the while remaining blissfully convinced she knows best.

If you had hopes that this Emma would be anything close to traditional, they’re dashed fast. Emma (boldly played by Amelia Kenworthy) sweeps onstage in full Regency dress – blue gown, petticoats, fan and bonnet. But all that is gone in minutes. Her costume is pulled off in favour of jeans and a T-shirt (emblazoned appropriately with the words “handsome, clever and rich” — just with the last word crossed out). Pickett might use Austen as her source material, but, just as with her Susan Smith Blackburn award-winning 1536, set during the final months of Anne Boleyn’s life, she has no interest in merely staging a museum piece.

What we get instead is a party playlist–infused joke-fest. Scenes are punctuated with pulsing lights (courtesy of Philip Gladwell) and tracks from Harry Styles to Olivia Rodrigo. Most of the action unfolds inside Emma’s family home (designed by Lily Arnold, with mint floral wallpaper and cluttered photo frames), where her wheeler-dealer father, Mr Woodhouse, and soon-to-be-married sister Isabella still live. Emma’s schemes come in quick succession: she even manages to convince Isabella’s doting fiancé John (Adrian Richards), that he can’t possibly be right for her. But by the end, the script starts to feel static, covering the same ground again and again.

The saving grace, then, is Pickett’s instinctive knack for finding humour in even the most drab conversations. Her script is littered with golden nuggets of comedy; one of the biggest laughs comes from Mr Woodhouse’s decision to nab some funeral flowers reading “love you” for his daughter’s wedding. But it is Emma’s best friend Harriet, geniusly played by Sofia Oxenham, who is the champion of delivering her one-liners with delicious, deadpan wit. Presented as an anxious ball of energy, constantly wringing her hands and shaking in her own skin, we root for her happy ending, even as Emma steers her far away from it.

It is performances like these that tie Pickett’s play together. Lucy Benjamin’s screeching Mrs Bates has her own messy love story to contend with (and yes, there even is a swilled drink to look forward to), while Kit Young’s George Knightly lets his true feelings for Emma fall out piece by piece. Together, they’re a fine cast that packs charm into every group scene.

With 2025 marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, adaptations are arriving thick and fast; just days ago, Ryan Craig opened a more traditional production of Emma at the Theatre Royal in Bath. But few are likely to be as much fun as this. Okay, it might not be your standard period drama, but it’s so joyous that maybe even Austen will be laughing in her grave.

At The Rose Theatre until 11th October