Fun Friday: Classic Literature as Contemporary Video Blogs

Friday, January 9, 2015

Two years ago, I got caught up in the internet/YouTube sensation known as The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Not only did I love watching it, I was also a Kickstarter contributor for the DVD set. And I preordered the novelization audiobook the minute the link went live on Audible.

What started with LBD has now become the latest trend in web-based episodic entertainment. So I thought I’d compile a brief list of the few I’ve found, some of which I’ve watched, some of which I haven’t had a chance to get into yet.

But let’s start with the one that (for me) started it all . . . The Lizzie Bennet Diaries:

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Out of this was born the Pemberly Digital channel (named after Darcy’s fictional company in LBD). Pemberly Digital followed up on the success with LBD and created Emma Approved (based on Jane Austen’s Emma) and then, in partnership with PBS, Frankenstein, MD (you guessed right, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). Neither of these ended up keeping my attention, but now they’ve started a new series, and one that I’m more than willing to give a chance:

Because of the success of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, we’re now starting to see a proliferation of Classic Literature Adaptation Webseries from all over the world. As I mentioned above, here are the ones that have caught my attention. I’m already hooked on East and West (Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South), and I’m going to give From Mansfield with Love a couple more episodes to see if it gets better than the first two—because I’m one of the few people in the world who likes Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.

Nothing Much to Do is a teen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing from New Zealand. I’ve watched the first episode and am interested in seeing where it goes. The others below that, I haven’t actually watched but I’m really interested in: In Earnest (The Importance of Being Earnest), Green Gables Fables/AnneWithAnE (Anne of Green Gables—and apparently Gilbert Blythe, Josie Pye, and Ruby Gillis have their own side vlogs), The Autobiography of Jane Eyre (can’t put my finger on what book this one is based on), and Classic Alice, which apparently explores a whole bunch of works of classic literature. So here are the kickoff episodes of each:
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