In the heady days of mid-1990s Britain, the actor Adrian Lukis went to a screen test for a glossy new drama: an adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice.
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To an actor, auditions come and go — most don't work out — and having hated the book while at school, he didn't have high hopes. They fell even lower when, in the corridors of the BBC, he bumped in to his rival for the part of Mr Wickham: a dashing man at least 10 years his junior.
But Adrian got the part, and his life changed forever thanks to his starring role as Jane Austen's charming rogue, alongside Colin Firth as Mr Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett. Decades later, he still gets stopped by fans wanting to talk about the greatest adaptation of what is arguably Austen's best novel (and one which quickly won Adrian over upon re-reading it).
In the course of those conversations a seed was planted: was Wickham really that bad? How did he get that way, if he was? And are we trusting Mr Darcy's assessment, which might easily be horribly skewed?
'I sort of got curious with the idea of what happens to bad people or bad men, rogues, cads, the charming, handsome, creatures that trawl the bars of London and behave in a thoroughly disreputable way,' he says.
'What happens to them when they'r eolder and they can't pick up the girls any more?...
'What has Wickham come to at 60? Is he still propping up the bar, trying to chat up the barmaid? Is he still married to Lydia? Is he drunk in a gutter? Does he live with a prostitute? Is he penniless? Or has he made a fortune?'
The result was Being Mr Wickham, Adrian's self-penned one-man show that shares the untold tale of the suave but slippery army officer.
Adrian talks about his life, his career and the challenges of writing one of literature's most enduring characters — which even saw him poring over a dictionary Regency-era slang — as well as the perennial appeal of Jane Austen. It's funny, clever and enlightening in equal measure and we hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed talking to him.
Being Mr Wickham is on in the Minerva Theatre at the Chichester Festival Theatre from January 20-24 — find out more and get tickets at the theatre's website.
Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Adrian Lukis
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
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