Pride & Prejudice – Review – Hull Truck Theatre

By Rachel Howard, September 2025

Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was one of my A-level English texts, and I loved it. Romance, drama, class wars… it was a great read. But by the time I’d analysed the novel to death and finished my exams, Austen was definitely not at the top of my reading list. And as life got busier in the intervening years, her back catalogue remained firmly on the shelf.

So when I accept an invite to see Pride & Prejudice at Hull Truck Theatre, I am both interested and slightly wary. Can I enjoy Austen again? Will her storylines still seem magical? Will I be entertained?

With these thoughts buzzing around my head, I take my seat in Hull Truck’s famously intimate auditorium and watch as almost every seat fills up. This production certainly has some pull, and it’s not hard to see why.

Adapted from the Austen novel by New Yorker Kate Hamill, this production might as well have been made for the Hull Truck stage. Boasting a cast of just ten actors (most of whom play dual roles), and with minimal set and props, the focus is exactly where it needs to be – on the characters. And being so close to the action means every member of the audience gets to know them inside out. And what characters they are…

“Phenomenal”

For those unfamiliar with the story, Pride and Prejudice charts the lives of the Bennet family during the early 19th century. The wildly fantastic matriarch, Mrs Bennet (Joanna Holden) is desperate for her four daughters to marry… but more importantly, marry well. Jane (Aamira Challenger), the eldest sister, is a quiet, shy and genteel girl. Favoured by her mother for her external beauty, she’s the first of the Bennet girls to couple up, falling head over heels for Charles Bingley (Eve Pereira).

Juxtaposing Jane’s quiet elegance is Lydia (Jessica Ellis). Still a naive teenager, she’s a real extrovert, with a boisterous personality that really sets the comedic tone of the production. Jessica Ellis’s characterisation is eye-wateringly funny – the sideways looks, too many glasses of punch, belting across the stage, the delivery of the sharp one-liners, it has all of us in stitches. Despite only being a teen, Lydia has her own love story with Mr Wickham (Ben Fensome), but this is where her naivety shows and the match proves to be ill advised.

Speaking of comedy, enter stage left Mary Bennet (Eve Pereira). Worthy of far more dialogue than she actually has, Mary spends most of the play sitting quietly at the pianoforte or lingering in the background, every now and then startling her siblings with an icy one-liner or a fantastically inappropriate tune. Staunchly against any idea of marriage or love, she’s comedy gold, and yes, a lot of that can be down to the script, but most of it is testimony to Pereira’s phenomenal acting.

And then we have the most famous of the sisters – Elizabeth Bennet (Rosa Hesmondhalgh). A woman years ahead of her time, Elizabeth does not suffer fools gladly. She pretty, intelligent and fiercely loyal. Despite encouraging her sister Jane’s romantic endeavours, she is adamant married life is not for her. Masking a lack of self worth, she distances herself from love, resigning herself to a life of spinsterhood, turning down proposals and potential suitors, resulting in the wrath of her money-grabbing mother.

“Stole my heart”

These feelings are only exacerbated (at first) by the arrival of the arrogant yet handsome Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy (James Sheldon). Obsessed with social standing and “a suitable match”, Darcy is the chalk to Elizabeth’s cheese. His comments about the Bennet family’s class status and her sisters’ romantic choices repel Elizabeth, but not before we, the audience, twig a moment or two of smouldering energy between the two. Even those unfamiliar with the story can see where we’re heading.

Overseeing all the drama brought about by his wife and daughters is Mr Bennet, played beautifully by Dyfrig Morris. It’s very hard to have favourite characters in a play as superb as this, but Mr Bennet stole my heart from the start. A devoted father and husband, he plays the hard-done-by patriarch with equal amounts of comedy and heart. Loving nothing more than chastising his over-excitable wife, or feeling exasperated with the ups and downs of his daughters’ love lives, his loyalty for his family is a joy to watch, and I must admit to shedding a tear or two during a poignant moment between Elizabeth and her father.

Balancing out the emotion are two of the funniest characters I have seen on a stage – Lady Catherine De Bourgh (Jessica Ellis) and Mr Collins (Ben Fensome). Secondary characters they may be, but the laughs come thick and fast from the larger than life, pretentious Lady De Bourgh and the Bennet girls’ cousin, the bizarre and hysterically disturbing Mr Collins. Whether Jane Austen would approve of her story receiving such raucous guffaws is anyone’s guess, but I don’t think anyone left without a huge grin on their face – and surely that was her aim when she wrote the novel in 1797.

I don’t need to go into detail about the storyline or it’s conclusion, I’m sure most people know how things turn out for Elizabeth and Mr Darcy – probably helped along by the infamous 1995 BBC production starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. The fountain scene has gone down in history, but don’t think that by seeing the production in a theatre you’ll be short changed… I’ll leave that thought with you!

“Bringing the characters to life”

Special mention must also be given to Sonum Batra, the composer and musical director. What starts off as seemingly generic classical music accompanying key scenes, soon starts to ring a bell and you realise you’re toe tapping along to 21st-century pop songs, dressed up in a period disguise. It’s clever and I love it!

This really is one of my theatrical highlights of the year. I’ve been lucky enough to see West End shows and epically successful UK touring productions, but this simple adaptation played out on a small stage with minimal set, featuring a small yet terrifically talented cast has hit the top spot. The proximity of the auditorium to the stage allows every little sideways glance and raised eyebrow to be seen and understood, vividly bringing the characters to life and making us all feel part of their stories.

In the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth, If there was ever a production to bring her works to the masses, it is this. Whether you’re a lifelong fan of the classics, or you don’t know your Mansfield Park from your Northanger Abbey, this play is for everyone. Highly recommended!

‘Pride & Prejudice’ is at Hull Truck Theatre until 11th October

Rachel Howard( Writer )

After studying English at university and having a lifelong love of writing, Rachel, a full-time editor, came to On Yorkshire in 2017 where she started off reviewing theatre productions in and around the East Yorkshire area. That love of theatre soon expanded into hotels, restaurants and travel, not to mention becoming one of On Yorkshire’s resident beauty editors, reviewing the latest products, spas and treatments. Rachel loves to sample the very best Yorkshire and the UK have to offer in order to bring you the low down on the high life!

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