‘The Other Bennet Sister’s Showrunner on Seeking Out Happiness
With Mary blissfully married, we can now share with you a rapid-fire Q&A with Sarah Quintrell, 'The Other Bennet Sister's head writer.
BritBox’s delightful, subscription-driving juggernaut The Other Bennet Sister has come to its sweet-tart, then ultimately very sweet-but-not-cloying conclusion, furnishing romantic and familial justice for both the titular Mary Bennet and Miss Caroline Bingley. Yes, in this Jane Austen Extended Storytelling Universe, even the waspish Miss Bingley can be redeemed once she lowers some of her walls and finds softness and sincere friendship on the other side. She even goes so far as to play Fairy Godmother, writing to Mr. Hayward to let him know that Mary is still in London, living with the Gardiners. Growth is possible, after all!
The arc of The Other Bennet Sister – both the novel by Janice Hadlow and its TV adaptation – mirrors the story of Mary Bennet herself. The novel was a pandemic book, published at the height of COVID-driven lockdowns in 2020, but has managed to break through to a very receptive audience, and now the series has become a juggernaut with an enthusiastic viewership in the UK and North America alike. If you’d told us in 1996 (the Jennifer Ehle/Colin Firth TV adaptation of Pride & Prejudice) or 2005 (the Kiera Knightley/Matthew Macfadyen film adaptation) that a story with Mary Bennet at its center would be BritBox’s biggest success here in 2026, we’d have snort-laughed, Lydia Bennet-style, right in your face. But here we are, and thank goodness for that!
With Mary and Tom safely, blissfully married in the season finale, we can now share with you a rapid-fire Q&A with Sarah Quintrell, The Other Bennet Sister’s head writer and one of its executive producers. We had one wild and precious four-minute conversation and made the most of it; keep an eye out for a particularly tantalizing tidbit at the end.
(This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
