Joseph Andrews Remixed

from the novel by Henry Fielding

Max Bennett as Harry Fielding

Lyndsey Marshall as Charlotte Fielding

Angus Imrie as Joseph Andrews

Michael Bertenshaw as Parson Adams

Lauren Cornelius as Fanny Goodwill

Jane Whittenshaw as Lady Booby

Helen Longworth as Mistress Slipslop

with Joseph Ayre, Stewart Campbell, Elinor Coleman, Stephen Critchlow,

Ben Crowe, Simon Judders, Jane Slavin and Tony Turner

Directed by Tracey Neale

Young Joseph Andrews, a footman in Lady Booby’s house, is so handsome, pure, honourable, upstanding and good that everyone who meets him falls in love with him. Not just love, either. Lust. This causes Joseph all manner of problems as he travels the highways and byways of eighteenth century England with his eccentric friend, the accident-prone Parson Abraham Adams.

This two-part reinvention of Henry Fielding’s comic novel - one of the earliest English novels - takes the book’s sunny, light-hearted comedy and fashions it into a joyful tale that brings18th and 21st centuries together.

London, 1741. Controversial writer Harry Fielding is strapped for cash. He can’t get work because he has mortally offended the Prime Minister in the press. He thinks a new book might get him out of a tight spot - but books take time.

When Harry tells his wife Charlotte his plan for a “comic epic poem in prose”, influenced by Cervantes and parodying Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, she is far from convinced that it’s a good idea. But, as Harry starts to develop the story, Charlotte chimes in with ideas of her own.

Harry and Charlotte’s relationship, a true love match, is the heart of this new look at an eighteenth century classic.

The play first transmitted on July 18th and 25th 2021 on BBC Radio 4, and is available on BBC Sounds and on Audible.