Visit the loveliest castle in the world

That’s what Lord Conway famously called Leeds Castle. It’s certainly pretty beautiful. Listed in the Domesday Book a castle has been on the site since 1119. Today there’s over 500 acres of beautiful parkland and formal gardens, a maze, activities, a lake, and of course the stunning home. Bought by Lady Baillie in 1926 for £ 180,000 (bargain!) it’s her style you’ll see as you wander round and, if things are going well, imagine your future home together.

See and save some animals

Run by the Aspinall Foundation and committed to conservation the 600 acre Port Lympne Safari Park is home to lions, deer, bear, largest herd of black rhino in the UK, western lowland gorillas, and the only giraffe in Kent. If you are a single parent dating there’s plenty of space for them to run around and animals to look at whilst you guys get to know one another without the worry having to pretend to be an alien/princess/giant mushroom. Just me as a kid?

Punt away

The River Stour passes through the whole county, but nowhere is it more lovely than in the cathedral city of Canterbury. Get a riverboat tour through the city, gazing at the old architecture and clear water. This is the kind of activity that suits everyone, from teenagers dating to over 50s dating, and everything in between. Wrap up warm in winter, bask in summer, and watch the world go by.

Enchanting Austen             

Visit the stunning seventeenth century manor at Groombridge Place, take a turn around the formal gardens, get tipsy in the vineyards and lose your heart in the Enchanted Forest. The 2005 film of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, starring Kiera Knightley, was filmed here Groombridge Place with the manor masquerading as Longbourn. And as love stories go, that’s a pretty good one.

Seafood

Every July the seaside town of Whitstable plays host to the Oyster Festival, where Oyster lovers and just lovers both enjoy the sun, sand, seafood and whatever else that famous aphrodisiac leads to. Personally I can’t stand oysters, but champagne – yes please!

Pride & Prejudice regularly tops lists of the most loved novels. Austen’s novel lends its text to numerous adaptations, of all kinds, including those with zombies, set in Bollywood, and a wet Colin Firth. As with Shakespeare, it is a truth universally acknowledged that sentences from it can be quoted by those who have never read a page.

So what do Simon Reade (stage adaptation) and Deborah Bruce (director) have to offer in their production? First performed at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in 2013 to celebrate the 200^th anniversary of the publication of ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and revived in 2016 and 2017, the 200^th anniversary of Austen’s death, the play starts its tour at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury with enormous style.

The set design (Max Jones) is marvellous, a wrought iron spiral staircase rotating around as the locations move between Netherfield, Longbourn and Pemberley, all in front of a screen of trees that slowly changes as the seasons do. It adds enough variation to the scenery without causing too much disruption to performance.

I am shocked by how young the cast of daughters are to be getting married, but then remember that this is reflective of the period. But even today, the accomplishments of Hollie Edwin (making her professional debut as Jane), Kirsty Rider (also making her professional debut in the role of Caroline Bingley) and Tafline Steen (Elizabeth) are quite astounding.

A certain vulnerability to Darcy (Benjamin Dilloway), underneath his sniffiness, makes Elizabeth’s love for him more believable than in other adaptations. The gasp of admiration and amazement from local school children as the two kiss at the end reminded everyone in the audience of why they love it. The warmth of the relationship between Elizabeth and her father (Matthew Kelly) is also lovely to watch, a tender portrayal of the sensible but witty patriarch crucial to the story’s development.

Whilst we might laugh at Mrs Bennet’s (played sparklingly by Felicity Montague) steadfast obsession and desperation to see her daughters wed, we have to acknowledge that not only was marriage in Austen’s day crucial for economic and social standing, but that sadly some things don’t change. As much as we have made steps towards equality, and it’s no longer the case that unmarried women will be destitute, there is still enormous pressure to settle down and have babies by the age of thirty, and the word ‘spinster’ being not an adjective but a criticism.

As always, purists will tut at the condensing of certain passages, or lines being moved between characters, but when adapting a novel of over 120,000 words into not more than 120 minutes, a level of selectivity will be required. Reade does it well. Carefully selected text means that Austen’s wit and humour shines, eagerly delivered by the cast and with particularly over the top vivacity from Montague.

It’s difficult to bring any new angle to Pride & Prejudice, but that’s not what people want from Austen’s most loved novel. Sometimes warmth, wit and wonder are all that is needed of art, and in this production, all three are delivered in volumes.

Photos by Johan Persson.

.The Pride and Prejudice 2017 tour continues until February 25th.