

Samantha Bond ( A&E’s Emma, James Bond) played Maria Bertram-Rushworth. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram were portrayed by Angela Pleasence and Bernard Hepton ( A&E’s Emma). The leads, Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram, were played by Sylvestra Le Touzel ( Vanity Fair) and Nicholas Farrell (Chariots of Fire, Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet). Their adaptation, which was directed by by David Giles (who also directed Hetty Wainthrop) contains a cast of wonderfully lifelike characters, many of whom would go on to play other Austen rolls. After a period spent at the home of her parents and siblings in Portsmouth, she returns to Mansfield Park because of unfortunate events affecting the Bertram family, and through her support for the family and her adherence to moral principles, her worth is recognised.In 1983 BBC once again took on Jane Austen, this time choosing her longest novel- Mansfield Park.

Although Fanny finally wins some respect from the Bertrams, she incurs the displeasure of her uncle by rejecting a marriage proposal from handsome philanderer Henry Crawford because she sees through Crawford's veneer and is unwilling to marry such an unprincipled man.

Snubbed by everyone except her cousin Edmund, Fanny begins her long struggle for acceptance by her snobbish relations, who believe wealth automatically means quality. Set, like all her novels, in contemporary England, Jane Austen's tale of virtue and vice centres on young and impoverished Fanny Price who arrives at the elegant country estate of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. Jonny Lee Miller, who has a small role as Charles Price in this serial, played Edmund Bertram in Rozema's adaptation.

Unlike Patricia Rozema's 1999 film, it is faithful to Jane Austen's novel. The serial was the first screen adaptation of the novel. Mansfield Park is a 1983 British television drama serial, made by the BBC, and adapted from Jane Austen's 1814 novel of the same name.
