Keeley Hawes and key cast are on board Miss Austen Returns, a follow-up to Masterpiece period drama Miss Austen, and which is in the works from Bonnie Productions.

Miss Austen was adapted from Gill Hornby’s novel of the same name. Christine Langan, whose Bonnie Productions made the series, tells Deadline that Hornby’s recently published follow-up, ‘The Elopement’, forms the spine of a new series Bonnie is working up with the title Miss Austen Returns.

Miss Austen writer Andrea Gibb is currently penning scripts. As with the earlier series, the show is expected to be a co-production with Masterpiece in association with Federation Stories and the BBC, which showed the first series in the UK.

With the new drama, plus Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Berlin Film Festival competition title Hot Milk and Miss Austen already under its belt, Bonnie has worked up notable credits in film and TV. It was founded in 2020 by Langan, the former boss of BBC Films and Baby Cow and a producer on numerous projects including Cold Feet and Stephen Frears’ The Queen, starring Helen Mirren as the British monarch.

“People watching Miss Austen might think, how does it return?” Langan says about Miss Austen Returns. “To a large degree, it’s down to the fact that Gill wrote another novel, which we optioned, and which created the potential for Cassandra to come back.”

She elaborates: “’The Elopement’ is drawn from very rich family history; the Austens were very fertile, there’s a lot of them. This is a well-researched true story that happens later on [from Miss Austen], around the 1820s, and to a wing of the family that involves Cassandra.”

Harking back to the first series, the Bonnie founder recalls that “Keeley Hawes lit the Touch Paper” on the four-parter, which told the story of Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra. The Miss Austen story revolved around scores of letters Jane wrote to Cassandra and others. The drama played out across two timelines.

Hawes played the present-tense Cassandra and Synnove Karlsen the younger version, opposite Patsy Ferran as Jane. The cast also included Rose Leslie, Mirren Mack, and Jessica Hynes, who turned in a memorable performance as the self-serving Mary Austen.

“I loved Gill’s novel and I love Jane Austen,” Langan says. “The themes spoke to me very clearly and I found it really funny and moving. I was lucky enough to be in conversation with Susanne Simpson at Masterpiece. She read it quickly and came back and absolutely wanted in.”

No spoilers, but Miss Austen has a definitive denouement. Langan shares how Miss Austen Returns can pick up from the first show.

“In the present tense of the narrative in Miss Austen Cassandra was carrying the legacy of Jane Austen. Then, in the past tense, you understood the chemistry and the dynamic between them. Well, you’re going to see more of both of those [elements], but the past-tense years that we focus on will be ones that were highly creative for Jane and when her novels were actually being published. Cassandra is carrying the flame in the present-tense part, and rather than burning letters and looking after Jane’s privacy as in the first series, this is about an interpretation of Jane’s meaning and value.”

Also with Federation Stories, is an adaptation of English novelist Jonathan Coe’s new book ‘The Proof Of My Innocence’. “It’s a really intricate and complex novel,” Langan says. “It’s quite a challenging adaptation, but I’ve optioned it with Polly Williams at Federation Stories and we’ve joined up. We have a very exciting young female writer and I’m really excited about her take on it.”

Another tie-in with the Miss Austen team is John and Nula, which is penned by Andrea Gibb and is currently casting. It is set to be BAFTA-winning director Philippa Lowthorpe’s next film. An unconventional and extraordinary love story, it is based on the relationship between John Suchet, famous in the UK as a newsreader and broadcaster, and his wife Nula. The pair met while caring for previous partners, both of whom had dementia.

“It’s a film about second chances,” Langan says. “It’s about the plan for your life being ripped up half halfway through and how you cope with that. And about whether you can overcome all the emotional hurdles you’re assailed by and can find the courage and get over the guilt, or the grief, to start again.”

Both John and Nula Suchet wrote novels about their experiences, but the movie will be largely based on interviews with the couple. “It’s maybe odd to say this, but it almost has the energy of a rom-com, but with the hurdles involved being genuine and emotional rather than contrived. It’s very funny, and it’s very sad.”

Langan worked with Chiwetel Ejiofor on his feature directorial debut The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind and is working with the actor and director again. This one is very much under wraps, but the Bonnie boss tells Deadline it’s about a musical family and she is working with David Hare on the film.

As her chat with Deadline reveals, Bonnie has a bustling slate. But Langan has been in the independent film and TV business long enough to know it’s tough out there.

“These are really turbulent times,” she says, giving a hat-tip to her former employer the BBC and its pubcaster counterparts. “They have never been more needed, and yet funding is really tough for them. All the moves towards a higher tax credit are really on the money and would make a big difference. I also think there should be a levy on streamers in this country, as there is in countless other territories.”

As a British producer, Langan is keen to avoid a situation whereby the UK is a place where big movies and series are made, rather than where they are created.

“It’s about whether you’re getting invisibly sucked into being a service industry, or whether you’re owning the underlying material and able to exploit that internationally. The latter is, of course, what we want. In order to do that, you need a livable, viable situation for British producers. Those are the people first in and taking the risks.”

Deadline’s time with Langan has run over. What comes through is the steely resolve that all top producers have – and need – to hustle film and TV projects into production, but also a desire to be completely connected to the creative. Being untethered from a big company means having to survive the current industry turmoil without much of a safety net, but also having a voice in anything that gets made.

“Within somebody else’s company, it’s easy to see the stuff you love happening over there,” she says. “I wanted to divest myself a little bit of those corporate structures and get close to the work.”