Anne is significantly older than her usual heroines (she is… 27) and, after a failed romance in her youth, facing a lifetime of dependency on her family as an unmarried woman, feeling like a burden.In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature. Written shortly before Austen’s death (it was published posthumously, along with Northanger Abbey), it’s more contemplative and melancholy than her other books. Re-imagining Persuasion as a zippy, quippy romantic comedy, meanwhile, feels like a bizarre misreading of the source material, one which undoes everything that makes this novel so special. But what all of these versions share is an affinity with the source material - they’re in the spirit of the original books, even if the plot and characters might have moved away from the “three of four families in a country village” template that Austen described as “the very thing to work on.” There have also been more “traditional” versions that play with the inherent wit and spikiness of many of her books in knowing ways - see Autumn de Wilde’s take on Emma, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. There’s also a voiceover where Anne implores us “don’t let anyone tell you how to live… or how to love”, which sounds a bit like it should be embossed on a gin glass in cursive hen do font, a bit where she pours a jug of gravy over her head (what an adorable klutz!) and a toe-curling moment when Anne says that she and her thwarted love interest Captain Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis) are now “worse than exes, we’re friends.” I’m surprised they didn’t go the whole hog and have her complain that she’d been friendzoned, or moan, in the manner of Keir Starmer referencing Love Island to try and sound cool, that her other romantic prospect Mr Elliot (Henry Golding) has “given her the ick”. From then on, it’s an extravaganza of fourth wall-breaking, as Johnson raises her eyebrows, smirks and delivers knowing one-liners straight down the camera lens. In the trailer for Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of Persuasion, Austen’s final completed novel, it takes a grand total of nine seconds before Dakota Johnson, who plays the book’s heroine Anne Elliot, takes a sneaky glance at the camera.

He inevitable has finally happened: Jane Austen has been Fleabag-ified.

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