Melissa Nathan - Pride, Prejudice and Jasmine Field

Harry started looking around the room for his next victim.

“Oh, you'd be surprised,” Jazz said a bit too loudly. “We journalists understand lots of things. Particularly,” she pretended to pluck words out of the air, and finished softly with “pomp and affectation.”

The room held its breath, but Harry merely looked back at her. “Oh dear,” he said in an infuriatingly measured tone. “Miss Field, we might as well sort this out once and for all. For the short period of your life that you leave behind the tacky world of women's magazines and work with me, I will turn you into a good actress. However painful that experience may be for both of us.”

Jazz bristled. “I never leave behind my "tacky world", as you put it, Mr Noble - it follows me, I'm afraid. Much in the same way that a bit-part in a "tacky" American sitcom would follow a classic actor.”

A couple of people coughed nervously.

“Well, there you're very much mistaken, Miss Field,” said Harry, leaning forward and allowing his voice more inflection. “I don't allow anything to follow anyone when they act with me. I want you, Miss Field, completely and utterly naked.” A fractional smile. “I'm speaking emotionally, of course.” Jazz grimaced. “And that's your first lesson.” He threw her a hard smile that landed, with a dull thud, in her gut. “Learning the difference between pomp and affectation and substance and integrity we'll have to leave to another day.”

And with that he turned swiftly to his next victim. Somehow Jazz found her seat again without falling flat on her bottom. The fact that everyone had now stopped watching her did nothing to lessen her sense of embarrassment. She hated him. In fact, she was so shaken by the public humiliation that it was several moments before she began to look forward to describing it in her column.

It was Mr Darcy's turn next. Jazz had at first been delighted to discover that Harry had succumbed to Matt's advice and given the part of the greatest romantic hero to the acerbic critic, Brian Peters. But within moments, her delight turned to serious concern. Poison Pen Peters' prose, albeit cruel, was always elegant, well-honed and majestic. His "voice" was an aesthetic joy, something every reader was in awe of due to its obvious natural superiority, whether or not they agreed with its content. As a writer, he would have made a perfect Mr Darcy. As an actor, however, he would have made a perfect ferret. It appeared to Jazz, as she studied Brian Peters for the first time, that testosterone had passed him by. His shoulders were narrower than hers, his voice higher, and his long, slim head made him look as if he was still recovering from a forceps delivery. How could such magnificent prose come from such an unimpressive person?

By now, everyone else knew the sort of interrogation they would receive from their director and had time to think of something half-witty to say for their own introductions. They were all suitably banal and benign. Sara Hayes had won the part of Miss Bingley - Mr Bingley's sister and doomed admirer of Mr Darcy - which almost managed to cheer Jazz up. How wonderfully typecast, she thought, with glee, watching the woman preen herself. Better still, Sara's friend Maxine was Mrs Hurst - her sister — and the man chosen to play Mrs Hurst's husband was Maxine's own porcine husband. Charles Caruthers-Brown's look of utter indifference to the proceedings suited his new role down to the ground.

The tall fair man who was still impersonating a stunned rabbit whenever he looked at George turned out to be called Jack - he was playing Mr Bingley, troubled suitor to George's Jane. Would life imitate art here also? wondered Jazz to herself. Is the Pope Catholic? she answered herself happily. She was even quite excited to see that Gilbert had won the part of Mr Collins, the insufferable, social-climbing curate. Despite herself, Jazz began to feel some respect for Harry Noble's casting ability.

The part of Lizzy's mother, Mrs Bennet, had gone to a large woman with heavy-lidded warm eyes, cropped black hair and beautifully smooth skin. Mr Bennet was to be played by a character actor Jazz had seen in many period productions on the television. He had always had minor roles and she had never given him more than a cursory glance. She had certainly never attributed any great meaning to anything he'd said, yet now she saw him in the flesh, with his tired, ruddy skin, his desperately grave expression and deep, mellow voice, she realised that while she had been ogling handsome lead actors, she had been wantonly ignoring many actors' lifetimes' achievements just because they had less pleasing features. She felt profound sympathy for the man who was doomed to always have the smaller, instantly forgettable parts just because his nose was too bulbous, his eyes too close together and his mouth too far over to the left. Her sympathy for him didn't last long though. She watched him for a while. He was unexpectedly self-obsessed and so blusteringly affected that she started to admire his lifetime's work of modest, humble characters afresh. He was obviously a far better performer than she had ever given him credit for.

Lizzy's three younger sisters were to be played by young fairly well-known personalities - one a novelist whose debut novel Monarchy, My Arse had had rave reviews, another a young photographer who had exhibited twice to rapturous reviews, and the other almost an "It" girl - cable TV presenter, party-goer. Even they were quite obviously flustered in the company of Harry Noble. So Jazz had been right. The second day of auditions had just been a publicity stunt. There was no one here who was a complete unknown. Apart, perhaps, from Mo and from Maxine's other half, Charles.

Just looking round the room at all the hopeful, determined faces was enough to convince Jazz that she had made the right decision never to try acting as a profession. She'd toyed with the idea for a week or two at the age of eighteen, but realised that she'd rather scrutinise the world than emotionally strip in front of it.

She was relieved to find out that her new friend Wills didn't think less of her after her tete a tete with Mr. Noble. In fact, it was rather the opposite.

As soon as Harry and Jazz had finished their spar, Wills had turned round to her. “May I be the first to congratulate you,” he murmured. “You have answered back the great Harry Noble.”

“Is he always this pretentious?” she asked.

Wills tried not to laugh out loud. “Believe me, you'll get used to the bastard.”

Jazz snorted. “What, like I got used to PMT?”

At this he did laugh out loud. A great, manly bellow of a laugh. Jazz couldn't help but join in. She was hooked. Nothing was as attractive to her as a man laughing at one of her jokes. Except a crowd of men laughing at a string of her jokes.

“Probably,” he said finally. “Perhaps that's why women seem to get on better with him than men.”

“Most women,” reminded Jazz, “only want one thing.”

She looked over at Jack and George, already deep in conversation. When she glanced back at Wills, she actually blushed to find he had stopped laughing and was studying her.

The first rehearsal had been just a read-through of the play. Jazz thoroughly enjoyed it. The adaptation had been very cleverly done - there was even a hint at a final snog with Darcy and Elizabeth, which didn't feel too anachronistic. However, every time Jazz looked at her Darcy, she felt seriously concerned. She certainly wouldn't be resorting to method acting with Brian Peters.

As soon as she and Mo were back in the flat, Jazz made a tape-recording of her part with long pauses for the other parts. Harry wanted everyone to be off scripts within a fortnight. She vowed to play the tape at every single opportunity. It took her three exhausting hours to make it.