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Script to Screen

The outstanding beauty of West Dorset has captured the hearts and imaginations of internationally renowned authors such as Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and John Fowles. Many of their works have also been filmed on location in the area, bringing the written word to life on the big screen.

Thomas Hardy

The landscape of West Dorset is entwined with Hardy's novels and their film adaptations.

Starring Ciaran Hinds and Jodhi May, the ITV production of 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' (2003) was shot on location in the county town of Dorchester (Hardy's 'Casterbridge') as well as at Maiden Castle, Cerne Abbas and Charmouth.

BBC One's lavish four part adaptation of Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles was filmed on location in Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire in Spring 2008 and the 1967 classic film adaptation of 'Far From the Madding Crowd' were also filmed in the area, along with 'The Scarlet Tunic' (1996), based on Hardy's short story 'The Melancholy Hussar of the German Legion'.

Jane Austen

An adaptation of Jane Austen's classic love story, 'Persuasion', was filmed on the famous Cobb in Lyme Regis in October 2006 for ITV. Sally Hawkins plays heroine Anne Elliot and Rupert Penry-Jones, plays Captain Frederick Wentworth.

A BBC version of 'Persuasion' was also filmed in Lyme Regis in 1994 and, in the same year, a film adaptation of 'Emma', which starred Greta Scacchi, Juliet Stephenson and Gwyneth Paltrow, was filmed in Evershot and Dorchester.

Sky Television are soon to document Jane Austen's links with Lyme Regis in a new programme entitled 'Rural England: A Novel Approach', which will be aired in the autumn.

'The French Lieutenant's Woman'

Lyme Regis was the home of local author John Fowles. In 1980 a film adaptation of his classic novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' was filmed in the local area and on the Cobb harbour where a cloaked Meryl Streep famously stood. Jeremy Irons also starred.