Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma has been brought into the 21st century by a new stage adaptation.

The original story, which took place in Regency England, saw the protagonist meddling in her friend’s love lives and navigating society balls.

British screenwriter and playwright Ava Pickett’s contemporary adaptation, which is playing at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London, has replaced the society balls with sweaty nightclubs and matchmaking with dating apps – and swapped its location from Surrey to Essex.

While the main character Emma retains the famous characteristics created by Jane Austen – she is intelligent and funny, but can be snobbish and at times mean – she navigates the world in 2025, and not 1815.

A description of the ‘irresistible’ adaptation on the Rose Theatre’s website says this fresh take on Jane Austen’s classic rom-com ‘swaps drawing room duets for dance floor-fillers, taking audiences on a ride of matchmaking and mischief that ignites laughter and warms the heart’.

As the first of her family to go to university – Oxford, no less – Emma Woodhouse is home over the Summer. What she hasn’t come clean about to her father is that she is home having failed her exams.

With her academic career stalling, she is ‘ready to do what she does best: sort out everyone else’s lives, whether they like it or not’.

Writer Ava Pickett (who was approached by the play‘s director Christopher Haydon to adapt the novel) told the BBC she hadn’t previously read Emma.

The 31-year-old, who has already built up an impressively prolific CV and is currently writing a script about Joan of Arc with Oscar-winner Baz Luhrmann, added that once she started reading the classic, she ‘really identified with that that feeling of [being] 21’.

Ava described it Emmas as being ‘so young, but […] on the cusp of adulthood’.

Noting that the protagonist thinks she knows everything about everyone else’s lives, including the actions they need to undertake to become happy, the writer said: ‘She reminded me so much of me at that age.’

The writer, who has also penned television scripts for programmes including the BBC’s Ten Pound Poms and Sky’s Brassic, revealed why she chose to do a modern adaptation, telling the BBC she spoke to her friends about the novel and how they felt about dating’ – and leading her to ‘recognise Emmas in [her life]’.

Dating in 2025 is widely divergent to its 19th century counterpart, and is largely dependent on the use of dating apps, which Ava called ‘addictive’, saying that people can end up getting validation from the number of matches and likes they rack up, ‘so a lot of your self-worth is coming from a number on your screen’.

She added that ghosting, which has become increasingly commonplace in recent years ‘can be really, really cruel’.

And it’s not just women who find the apps ‘toxic’, said the writer, but young men too.

‘They [dating apps] are perpetuating a value system that doesn’t value human complexity or awkwardness,’ she said.

Another significant update in Ava’s adaptation is the role of Emma’s best friend Harriet.

In the new play at the Rose, Harriet plays a larger and more significant role than in Jane Austen’s novel.

Unlike Emma, who went away to university, Harriet remained in the pair’s hometown.

The playwright revealed that she ‘really loves’ writing female friendships, which she described as ‘wonderful but brutal and difficult’. In addition, Ava noted, no one is ever that retaining a friendship longterm requires work.

She hopes that the contemporary version will appeal to new audiences – more than two centuries after the original was published.

It remains relevant, Ava said, because one thing is still largely the same now as it was back in Austen’s day – the human condition. Specifically she said that ‘jealousy is jealousy’, and ‘love is love’.

In addition, one the most famous quotes from the novel provided the writer with something very significant to explore.

The quote, comes from a conversation between Emma and Harriet, when the protagonist tells her best friend: ‘You must be the best judge of your own happiness.’

Ironically, she shares the nugget with Harriet after talking her out of a proposal from farmer Robert Martin – a move motivated by Emma’s own snobbery.

Ava wanted to examine the quote, saying: ‘I really wanted to dig into that a lot. It’s something Emma has to learn.’

Her contemporary version follows another update – the 90s film Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, and set in California, described by Ava as a ‘masterpiece’.

This year is the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth, and as well as the Rose’s version of Emma, there will be a new screen version of one of the novelist’s most famous works.

A new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice will be coming to Netflix soon: production started in July this year, though the release date is yet to be announced. Adapted by novelist Dolly Alderton and director Euros Lyn, it stars Emma Corrin.

Speaking about the production, Netflix executive Mona Qureshi said: ‘We are delighted to be sharing this beloved British classic with our global audience.

‘Pride and Prejudice is the ultimate romantic comedy. Dolly’s fierce intelligence and enormous heart, twinned with her genuine love of the Austen novel, means she is able to bring new insights, whilst celebrating all that the generations of fans hold so dear.’

Emma is currently on at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London, until October 11, 2025.

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