Former 'Call The Midwife' Star to Play 'The Other Bennet Sister'

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by those who are self-aware, at any rate) that every person is the hero of their own story. It's one reason the rise of the antihero in storytelling over the past few decades has resonated so strongly with audiences: the uncomfortable tension of having someone who is, at heart, a terrible person as the supposed protagonist to root for, who absolutely sees themselves as the good guy, and may even have valid emotional reasons for how they behave, even when their actions are absolutely rotten.

That tension is at the heart of the 2020 best-seller by Janice Hadlow, The Other Bennet Sister, which takes Elizabeth Bennet's most antagonistic sister in Pride & Prejudice, Mary, and puts her and her snobbish, self-righteous priggery front and center, retelling Jane Austen's story of the Bennet sisters from her point of view instead. After all, who among us is willing to admit that, if it were 1813, we'd probably be much more like Mary than Lizzie?

One actor apparently is proud to declare that she's always been a Mary: Ella Bruccoleri, who PBS fans will know best from her turn as Sister Francis in Call the Midwife from Season 8 to Season 11. Bruccoleri will lead the cast as Mary Bennet in the ten-episode series, adapted from Hadlow's novel, as part of the ongoing celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth.