“He smouldered, he was master of the moody silence, and he wore trousers so tight that you could count the small change in his pocket." The Times, 1995.

Female hearts across the nation were set a-fluttering by his repressed passion for Jennifer Ehle’s Elizabeth Bennett. Innumerable websites sprang up, with names such as Firth Frenzy and Firthlist. He became a sex symbol of epic proportions, featured in every newspaper and magazine, and the subject was even raised on BBC1’s Question Time. What was it about this portrayal that sparked the delirium?

Andrew Davies' adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was a television phenomenon. Dominating the Sunday night schedules, it stole two out of three of ratings-buster Cracker’s regular viewers. It was watched on its original six-week outing in September/October by more than 11 million fans (a number greater than the entire population of the UK in Jane Austen’s day) and the entire run of the double video set sold out less than two hours after going on sale. This was merely the beginning of a global epidemic of Austen fever, with the series gaining more than 100 million viewers worldwide. In The New Yorker in 1996, Martin Amis wryly observed, “Currently, it seems, Jane Austen is hotter than Quentin Tarantino.”

An unlikely heart-throb?

At first glance the character of Mr Darcy is not a very promising role for an actor. He spends much of the story looking down his nose at those around him and is not given to outbursts of passion. This is how Jane Austen describes him in the novel, in Chapter 3:

“[Mr. Bingley’s] friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien; and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend."

What kind of actor could take on this challenge and make Darcy a sympathetic character, someone who viewers would swoon over? Sharon Macguire (director of Bridget Jones’ Diary) says of Colin Firth, “He makes haughty so darned sexy, the more haughty and aloof he became, the more sexy he became. Cold, but at the same time heating things up...” And heat things up he did. 

Firth says of the passions he awoke in the nation’s women, and the accompanying media frenzy, “My country became a different place for me. I was delighted that it was happening, but it took me so by surprise, I couldn't really make sense of it. I had never focused on playing romantic characters, so I actually felt like it was happening to someone else, and I did not know how to answer for it.” The shadow of Mr Darcy was cast across Firth’s work for some years following Pride And Prejudice but it seems he has now come to terms with the man who is responsible for his status as a worldwide heart throb.

Chemistry lesson

The success of the slow-burn romance wasn’t just down to his performance, however. Director Simon Langton felt that the secret to the success of the Elizabeth/Darcy relationship was in holding it back and restraining it right to the last minute. In the editing suite he deliberately manipulated the timing of the shots between the two of them to give the impression of longing, lingering glances.

The chemistry between Firth and his leading lady, Jennifer Ehle, may also have something to do with the fact that the pair were romantically involved during filming. "They only discovered it after it was over," he told the Guardian in 2001.

But sexing up the story a little also played a part. Necklines were dropped below what would have been acceptable to Miss Austen and there was an emphasis on activities that caused breathlessness - dancing, strenuous walking through the countryside, etc.

If asked to name the defining image of the BBC series, however, the answer would have to be Mr Darcy emerging dripping wet from an impromptu dip on his country estate. Without any parallel in Darcy’s rather more dignified activities in the novel, the moment was designed by adaptor Andrew Davies to give the uptight Mr Darcy a more physical, vigorous side. If the sight of a billowing white shirt and breeches clinging suggestively to Colin Firth’s shapely body was not enough, can you imagine what the effect would have been if the scene had gone ahead as originally intended? Firth reveals, “That was initially supposed to be a nude scene but the BBC don't allow pre-watershed nudity, so I had to go into the lake clothed - hence the wet shirt.”

The Bridget Jones connection

The most famous victim of Darcymania is probably Bridget Jones. Helen Fielding had just begun writing her Bridget Jones’ Diary column for The Independent when Pride And Prejudice hit the screens.

This is what Bridget had to say, "Sunday 15 October. 8.55pm. Just nipped out for fags prior to getting changed ready for Pride and Prejudice. Hard to believe there are so many cars out on the roads. Shouldn’t they be at home getting ready? Love the nation being so addicted…10.30 pm. Jude just called and we spent twenty minutes growling, ‘Fawaw, that Mr Darcy.’ I love the way he talks, sort of as if he can’t be bothered. Ding-dong!”

(Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding, p246-7. Published by Picador, 1996. © Helen Fielding, 1996, by kind permission of Gillon Aitken Associates, Ltd)

In a wonderfully cross-referential way, a Mr Darcy then made his way into Bridget’s life. Helen Fielding says, “I was so in love with Mr Darcy, so without hesitation I called Bridget’s Mr Right Mark Darcy. And I described him exactly like Colin Firth. So much so that a part of me was worried that the actor would find my description too much like him."

In the most divine piece of casting in movie history, Colin Firth was chosen to play Mark Darcy in the two Bridget Jones films. It couldn’t really have been anyone else.