The keenly anticipated Meryton ball is referred to by the Bennets as the 'next assembly' - in Georgian times, public balls were held, usually to coincide with a full moon to aid travel to and fro, in the Autumn and Winter months. They were important social gatherings, allowing young people from a wider social circle than usual to meet and get to know one another. This ball offers the novelty of Mr Bingley and his 'large party' from Netherfield being introduced to Meryton society.

The narrative voice comes close to the voice of gossip in Meryton about marriage market - with the idea that 'to be fond of dancing' was a step to 'falling in love'. This sense of anticipation is translated in the Davies' 1995 adaptation by Mrs Bennet's remark that, now Mr Bennet has called on him, her 'girls' will 'all dance with Mr Bingley'.

The gap between rumour and reality is portrayed by Austen - town gossip exaggerates the size of the party to include 'twelve ladies' who might form a barrier to the young women of Meryton dancing with Mr Bingley - but in reality, only his two sisters attend with him. The town gossip about Bingley and his guests is represented in Davies' adaptation in a lively two-hander between Lydia and Kitty. When the Bingley party arrives at the ball, Elizabeth notes to her sisters and Charlotte - 'only two ladies then after all'.

Unlike Austen, Davies provides detailed directions about the people present and setting for the ball - including how they feel in their finery; that Mrs Bennet and Lady Lucas are at 'the top end of the social scale here'. This explains further why they are offended when, as Austen notes, Mr Darcy seems 'so above his company' Davies visualises the assembly room where dancing, refreshment and talk all take place. He also envisages the atmosphere which is 'hot and sweaty', full of 'coarse male laughter' and 'ROWS of plump matrons sitting down'. People are relaxed enjoying themselves. The onscreen production is slightly more refined than this and these directions in fact describe more accurately the setting and atmosphere of the Meryton Ball in the 2005 Joe Wright adaptation, which is a larger more chaotic gathering. The music stops and a hush falls upon proceedings when the Netherfield party arrives and walks the full length of the room with the whole assembly watching them.

In the novel, first favourable impressions of Darcy from the assembly are of his 'handsome features, noble mein' and his 'ten thousand a year' (which would have made his family one of the richest 400 in the country at the time [Mingay, 1963]). But soon 'his manners gave a disgust' as he refuses to engage with the Meryton residents. Davies channels these first impressions through Mrs Bennet who asks Jane and Elizabeth if Darcy is not 'the handsomest man you have ever seen'. But when he snubs them, walking off after he claims he 'rarely dances', Mrs Bennet asks if they have ever met 'such a proud disagreeable man' and agrees with Elizabeth's teasing that he is 'Quite ill-favoured!' Darcy has signalled to her clearly that he is not in the market for 'falling in love' at this ball. There is no such conversation in the novel and Darcy does dance but only once with each of Bingley's sisters.

Note from the Davies stage directions how Bingley dances respectfully with Jane and other Meryton ladies, while Darcy 'prowls the room', observing all, inlcuding the gossiping Mrs Bennet, failing to spot when Sir William approaches to him to speak and ending up 'a little to one side'.

Elizabeth is 'sitting down just behind' Darcy when Bingley urges him to dance, making it more plausible that he does not think she will overhear. Instead, in the 1995 adaptation the camera frames Elizabeth in the foreground and then to the side of the two men where she is more obvious to them. This increases the force of his slight to her.

Davies retains Darcy and Bingley's conversation almost verbatim: Bingley declares that Jane is the 'most beautiful creature I ever beheld' while appropriately the music playing is the country dance tune 'The Happy Captive'. Darcy states that being unable to dance with Miss Bingley or Mrs Hurst 'it would be a punishment for me to stand up with any other woman in the room', which is close to Austen's dialogue. Davies claims in his stage directions that in his very strong words 'there's an undercurrent of humour to it which is not unconscious on Darcy's part', i.e. this is men's banter, but it does not play out that way on screen.

After Darcy slights Elizabeth saying she is 'tolerable' but 'not handsome enough to tempt me' and has already been rejected by 'other men', Davies' adaptation stages it so that Elizabeth crosses in front of him to reach Charlotte: 'This means she has to pass DARCY' who thinks 'actually she is rather interesting'...laying the first foundation here for his attraction to her, which the novel does not. In the 2005 adaptation, the Bennet family have already been introduced to the Bingley party and Elizabeth has asked Darcy if he likes to dance to which replies with the colloquial ‘Not if I can help it’. She is in a quiet spot with Charlotte, hidden from view, when they overhear ‘not handsome enough to tempt me’ line. This adaptation spares Elizabeth the ‘slighted by other men’ comment.

Austen has Elizabeth relate the story of Darcy's rejection 'with great spirit among her friends' because her 'lively playful disposition... delighted in any thing ridiculous'. Davies does not openly relay what Elizabeth says to Charlotte either but her reaction and looks exchanged between them and Darcy say it all. In the 2005 adaptation, Elizabeth seizes the right of reply to Darcy’s insult in a group exchange about what encourages affection. She responds to Darcy ‘Dancing… even if one’s partner is barely tolerable’ and then exits the assembly. This sets up their combative relationship earlier than either the novel or the 1995 adaptation do.

In the novel,the most detail about the dances themselves is offered by Mrs Bennet to her husband on returning from the ball. She recounts who danced with with whom for each two-dance sets. Dances of the long-form type often lasted 20 minutes each, meaning partners were able to spend 40 minutes in each other's company across the set. Elsewhere, Jane Austen describes dancing as quite a shared physical experience [add quote].

While 'Jane was so admired' Mrs Bennet relates 'with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration' Darcy's slight to Elizabeth and claims she is not so badly off 'by not suiting his fancy'. Davies plays up the banter between Mr and Mrs Bennet even further than Austen and engages Mr Bennet's playful indignance: 'Slighted my Lizzy, did he?' But the screenwriter gives the last word to Elizabeth who 'safely' promises 'never to dance with Mr. Darcy!' A promise that will be broken at Netherfield Ball.

Austen plunges the reader straight into Elizabeth's experience of the Netherfield Ball at the start of Chapter 18. She is looking around the crowded drawing room, trying to locate Wickham. After Denny explains his absence, she is furious and barely able to control her feelings when Darcy comes to ask how she is. 'Attention, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham' and 'turned away with a degree of ill-humour.' This first encounter is replaced in the 1995 adaptation by a series of intense looks between Darcy and Elizabeth across the room. However, the scene-setting for the ball is grander than for the public assembly at Meryton - with guests being met formally by the Bingleys and the reception, dancing and dining taking place across several decorated rooms. The band is also much larger and the music more refined. Davies' stage directions describe the ball room as 'glittering, elegant, very formal... Beautiful room, tall windows, chandeliers, lots of ELEGANT PEOPLE'. The setting for the 2005 adaptation is even grander and the camera follows Elizabeth through the rooms, gazing around in wonder.

The comic juxtaposition of Elizabeth's dance with Mr Collins and her stately dance with Darcy is heightened in the 1995 adaptation. Austen describes her 'dances of mortification' with her cousin. In Davies' adaptation the lively leaping dance that accompanies 'The Shrewsbury Lasses' tune allows for Mr Collins ridiculous jumps and mistakes with the dance steps. The 2005 film has Mr Collins staring overintently into Elizabeth's eyes while she catches up on news of Wickham from her friends in moments when the dance parts her from Mr Collins. This is the Boulanger which is the C18thC equivalent of speed-dating dance.

In contrast, Austen underlines the fact that once Elizabeth has got over her own shock of accepting Darcy's spontaneous invitation to dance she notices 'the dignity to which she was arrived' in standing up with him in the eyes of the company. Davies notes that Darcy and Elizabeth 'dance very well together' and the dignified, 'Wildboar [Mr Beveridge's] Maggot' allows for the 'superior dancing' that Sir William openly praises them for. The pauses caused by Elizabeth and Darcy being separated during the dance add to the tension and drama of their conversation. The complexity of the choreography makes it all the more impressive that the actors only had three days to master this and all the other dances in the series [choreographer, Jane Gibson, in The Making of Pride and Prejudice].

The tone of the conversation that Elizabeth starts is lighter at first in the 1995 adaptation but, in the novel, the verbs and adverbs used to describe her tone and attitude show she views it as 'a greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk'. Phrases like 'Archly', 'unable to resist the temptation' and 'replied with emphasis' indicate she is trying to irritate Darcy in revenge for his ill-treatment of Wickham. Darcy's 'Do you talk by the rule when dancing?' seems light in repsonse to what sound like teasing comments. Both adaptations retain this glittering dialogue but omit other small talk, for example about 'private balls being much pleasnter than public ones.' This comment is restored in their dialogue in the 2005 film, although Elizabeth starts the whole conversation more informally with 'I love this dance', which is accompanied by a soulful theme from Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas: serious music heralding a grown-up relationship between them.

Once Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth if she and her sisters often walk to Meryton, the conversation turns darker. It allows her to introduce the topic of Wickham and he tries to explain that Wickham does not often keep friends. Austen interrupts the dance with Sir William's comments about a future happy event between Jane and Bingley and Darcy's eyes 'are directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and Jane'. When the dance resumes, he attempts to discover her reading tastes - always a good sign in a male character in Austen - but she moves back to his character and how once a resentment is formed he rarely forgives. Darcy requests her to delay judgement him for the present - not to hold on to hasty first impressions. The signals he sends are retained in the Davies' adapation and the two part as the dance ends. One stage direction sums up the tone he forsees Elizabeth taking, however: 'ELIZABETH, playfulness masking aggression'. The 2005 adaptation moves further away from Austen to create one of the most memorable scenes of the whole film. The dance is intense, full of longing looks and miscommunication. It ends not with Darcy's request to Elizabeth but with his pledge to 'afford [her] more clarity in the future' about his character. The two have stopped dancing while other dancers move around them and when they resume are alone in the ballroom - immersed in one another's movements and gazes - until the music stops. The effect is that of a couple falling in love in spite of themselves.

Immediately after her dance with Darcy, Austen issues Elizabeth and the reader with two warnings about Wickham - one venomous one from Caroline Bingley who insists that Wickham 'has treated Mr Darcy in an infamous manner'. Ironically, this is intended to hurt Elizabeth, this information could do Elizabeth a favour. 'Insolent girl!' she responds, labelling it as a 'paltry attack'. The second warning comes from indirectly from Mr Bingley via Jane. Elizabeth may feel that Jane's views are influenced by her feelings for Bingley, but in fact it is she who is biased due to her prejudice against Darcy. The 1995 adaptation depicts both these warnings and Elizabeth acknowledges 'Mr Bingley's sincerity' in believing his friend. The 2005 adaptation however, replaces the Miss Bingley warning with a snide comment - 'What interesting relatives you have, Miss Elizabeth' as Mr Collins introduces himself to Darcy. It does not inlcude the warning from Jane at all and so for Elizabeth and the viewer there is much less foreshadowing of Wickham shady nature in Joe Wright's film.

At the end of Chapter 18 the narrator remarks that to Elizabeth it seems 'that had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success'. Reflecting on the middle and end parts of the Netherfield Ball, this refers not only to the humiliation of Mr Collins before Darcy but also her mother's loud comments on Jane's match with Bingley. Lizzy's with Mr Collins and this throwing her younger daughters 'in the way of other rich men' but also Mary's embarrassing song at the piano and her father's public admonishment of her.Whereas, Elizabeth is stuck at the dinner table, listening to her mother's boasts of her daughter's conquests and their family's luck, in Davies' adaptation she overhears from some distance and when Bingley shouts 'Shall we not have some music? I have a great desire for a song. Caroline!' watches Mary rush up the piano. After her father puts a stop to this before she starts a second song, Elizabeth's shame is complete. This memory comes back to haunt her, in Chapter 34 when Darcy mentions her family's awful behaviour as factor that have prevented his proposing before. The 2005 adaptation is much freer with the events of the ball after the Darcy-Elizabeth dance. The camera roves around folowing first Elizabeth who witnesses Mary's humiliation, then glimpsing Darcy as he overhears Mrs Bennet's boast, then Jane and Bingley as they talk about riding and finally Mr Collins who is sadly picking the petals off a single flower', and finally back to Elizabeth – alone outside and full of shame. This neatly condenses the events of the latter stages of Austen's ball into a short space of time.

The Davies adaptation of Netherfield ball ends with the wild dancing of Lydia through the dining room, after which she throws herself down a chair and shouts how 'fagged' she is. Austen describes how by outstaying their welcome and being the last to leave the ball, by Mrs Bennet's design, they had 'time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the [Bingley] family'. The 2005 adaptation has a scene dedicated to the Bennets' departure in the light of a grey dawn. Mrs Bennet declares she has 'never had such a wonderful time' as the camera pans up to the balcony and Caroline says 'You cannot be serious, Charles.' It sounds a note of reality and is a far cry from the glittering romantic start to the evening when carriages bringing town and country arrived at Netherfield.

With Elizabeth's response to her aunt's letter the reader is drawn close to her mixed emotions, as she fathoms what Darcy's actions in funding and arranging Lydia's marriage to Wickham might mean to her relationship with him. She is deep in thought. In Davies' 1995 adaptation this is presented as the image of Darcy and her uncle shaking hands fades and Elizabeth has only a moment to reflect before Wickham arrives. In the 2005 film, Elizabeth hears of Darcy's involvement from Lydia at the dining table. At this point Wickham shoots her an unnerved glance causing him to drop his plate. It is only as he pauses to nod goodbye to her and she turns away, that he will know her full disapproval. A whole dialogue from the novel is expressed solely by a series of looks.

The settings between the novel and the 1995 adaptation contrast strongly here - at the start of Chapter 52, Elizabeth is in 'the little copse' reading the letter. In Davies' script she is in the garden much closer to the house. She is somewhat ambushed by Wickham in the novel, barely having time to get up from her seat, and with no chance of avoiding him. On screen in the 1995 production, Wickham is posing against a wall when he interrupts her reading.

Elizabeth's reply about being interrupted show the power that a Jane Austen speech can wield in one word. In this case the word 'must'. She enables her heroine to show that she is irritated by his interruption but that he could prove to her that it might have been worth it. Austen could have chosen 'is' or 'will be' but instead selects the stronger 'must' with its implication of duty and obligation. Andrew Davies' stage direction gives a strong sense of how this line will be delivered.

The Davies'script indicates that they stroll in the garden along the path by the house, while in the novel, Wickham joins Elizabeth and the two walk with more privacy in the copse. But Davies' earlier draft indicates that Wickham has plans to lead Elizabeth into the wilderness garden but she steers him to the well-trodden more public path.

In the novel, Wickham starts his gentle enquiries about Elizabeth's visit to Pemberley with talk of the housekeeper there. This first part of the conversation from the novel appears in Davies' earlier draft . This may have been cut during shooting to keep the action moving, because it repeat some of Wickham's complaints of his ill-treatment from an earlier conversation or during the editing to keep Episode 6 to the right length.

When Wickham refers to 'passing' Darcy in London a few times, Elizabeth and the reader already know that these were no chance meetings and therefore that he is lying to her face. In Davies' script this is the first thing he says to her about Darcy and Pemberley which sharpens the insult. Or is he testing her out to see what she knows?

If Wickham is testing Elizabeth about what she knows, her response does exactly the same to him. By first suggesting that Darcy might be in town due to a wedding, and only clarifying after a pause that she means his wedding to Miss de Bourgh, she unsettles Wickham. In the Davies' production, his facial expression says "how true, if only she knew". The actors' performances highlight the inferences present in the dialogue much of which is Jane Austen's.

Their veiled argument steps up once Elizabeth and Wickham start to talk about Georgiana Darcy, whom she introduces into the conversation. When Wickham, at the height of his hypocrisy, says he hopes Georgiana will turn out well, Elizabeth fires a more serious warning shot: 'she has got over the most trying age'. In Darcy's young sister's case it was Wickham who nearly caused her downfall. Davies' stage direction is explicit in showing how this comment unnerves Wickham who on-screen half stops in his tracks before changing the subject rapidly.

Elizabeth's playful-sounding question to Wickham about making sermons is, as Davies' stage direction states, full of 'obvious irony'. In the novel Wickham defends himself saying how the parson's life would have suited him. In Davies' script this is shrunk to a slightly cross look and 'Exceedingly well'.

The hammer-blow response that reveals to Wickham that she knows exactly what he is, comes in the novel when she refers to hearing from 'an authority' as good as Darcy that Wickham turned down the parish promised to him in favour or a payout. Without revealing her sources, but showing which side of the story she believes, in the Davies script she reduces Wickham to a mere 'Well' in response as he submits.

Elizabeth acknowledges her victory by putting an end to this 'quarrel' and offering him her hand. As long as he knows where she stands, they can move on as 'brother and sister'. Neither the Wickham of the novel nor the on-screen Wickham can meet her gaze. And in both the novel and Davies' script Elisabeth has walked them back to the house and she leads the way in. Austen introduces Chapter 53 with confirmation that Elizabeth has silenced Wickham and this effectively marks the end of his character arc. In the 2005 film, as Lydia and Wickham depart from Longbourn, without a word having passed between Elizabeth and Wickham. His last act is to pull Lydia down to sit in the carriage and stop her loud goodbyes to her family. An ominous sign.

There is strong contrast in the arrival of Lady Catherine at Longbourn between the two adaptations. In Davies' 1995 adaptation it is the remaining Bennet women (including Jane) who receive her in the daytime. Whereas in the Joe Wright adaptation, Lady Catherine arrives at night and the whole household greet her at the door, including Mr Bennet and the dogs. The effects of these choices of setting the scene are very different: Davies matches the novel with the move to the outdoors for the debate that follows between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine which is less cloying and claustrophobic than the candlelit interior scenes of the 2005 film .

The brusqueness of Lady Catherine’s arrival and entrance in the Bennet’s sitting room is matched by the conciseness of Austen’s sentence structure. The brusqueness of her actions will soon be reflected in her dialogue with Elizabeth. Andrew Davies captures this abrupt quality in Lady C’s opening lines and then adds an extra note of rudeness as she twice cuts off Mrs Bennet's comments mid-sentence.

Jane Austen expresses Elizabeth’s thought to herself as ‘she said’ – but it is clear that this is the character’s internal monologue In other parts of the novel internal dialogue is expressed by Austen as 'thought Elizabeth'. or said to herself

Lady Catherine’s opening sentences are jabs at Elizabeth with the repeated use of ‘You cannot’…’your own heart… your own conscience’ making it clear that Elizabeth is in the wrong about something and she has put her ‘noble guest’ to much trouble in travelling to Longbourn. Lady Catherine is to use this rhetorical device of anaphora repeatedly in her argument with Elizabeth. . The fact that this is to be a verbal duel is signified in the Davies’ adaptation when she turns abruptly to face Elizabeth some 10 paces away as soon as they enter the walled garden and have some privacy.

In contrast to the assertive statements from Lady Catherine, Elizabeth uses conditional sentences based on hypotheticals to deflect her opponent’s claims. Here ‘If you believed it to be impossible… I wonder you took the trouble of coming…’ Her evasion is like a parry to Lady Catherine’s lunge forward with a sword. This device is called a rhetorical conditional and is used several times. Andrew Davies retains these, recogising them as a key part of Elizabeth's verbal arsenal .

Throwing her own words back in her face is another ploy that Elizabeth uses to strike back at Lady Catherine’s rudeness. Here – she returns the word ‘frankness’ that Lady Catherine has claimed is one of her strong points with the implication that frankness is only another word for extreme offensiveness – something Elizabeth does not herself possess. She manages to operate within the politeness code and use this as a reason for not denying the rumour about her and Darcy. As part of making the dialogue shorter for the screen, Davies chooses to omit this detail - her ladyship neither claims to be frank nor does Elizabeth have this as ammunition to fire back at her.

Lady Catherine introduces the tale of how she and Darcy’s mother decided long ago that he and Miss de Bourgh would be married. In rhetorical terms she is using an anecdote to support her claim that Elizabeth should reject any claim she has on Darcy. The stage directions in Andrew Davies'script show Lady Catherine's change of mood as she first hesitates to use such a personal story and then grows angrier with Elizabeth as she tells it .

The point of Elizabeth’s lower social class is emphasised by another forceful language device – the power of three – when she tells her she is ‘of inferior birth, of no importance in the world and wholly unallied to the family’ In rhetoric, this is called a tricolon. Davies changes the emotive power of three to 'without family, connections of fortune' to take away the stigma of Elizabeth being condsidered 'unimportant' which might have clashed with the ideas of viewers of the 1990s and replaces it with a the money-related term 'fortune'.

The fact that Elizabeth remains logical is supported by her use of balanced sentences with equally weighted halves. This device of parataxis is present in many speeches by Jane Austen’s witty heroines and here makes it sound like she is laying out a case in a court of law. Davies uses one of the more direct examples of parataxis when Elizabeth seeks to impress on Lady Catherine that she is Darcy's equal.

Elizabeth acknowledges this is a verbal battle by pointing out to Lady Catherine that her arguments have been frivolous and that in making them she has been ill-judged. By commenting on the standard of argument she attacks the argument rather than the person directly but still criticises Lady Catherine’s skills and judgement.

Elizabeth finally loses her cool after Lady Catherine resorts to insulting her family (just as she does when Darcy does this during his first proposal). She speaks her response ‘resentfully’ and tries to bring the conversation to an abrupt close.

It is Elizabeth who rises first and takes the initiative to act. The Davies adaptation takes this further with Lady Catherine out of breath and hurrying to keep up with Elizabeth as she makes off to the house from the walled garden.

In a final appeal to the code of manners, Lady Catherine asks if Elizabeth will not reject any claims on Darcy for ‘duty, honour and gratitude’ and another emotive power of three. In response, Elizabeth flings the same three words back at her adversary. She is not beholden to Lady Catherine and has received no offer and so can deflect these terms. Elizabeth's response in Davies' script does not react to Catherine's attempt at moral blackmail, but returns another balanced argument to her. Essentially, this matter is between herself and Darcy and no-one else.

Mrs Bennet’s half-question, wondering if Lady Catherine ‘had nothing special to say to you’ is deflected by Elizabeth, the narrator ephemistically comments with a ‘little falsehood’ to protect herself and to avoid explanation to her mother. The 2005 dialogue echoes the response of a teenager as Elizabeth storms upstairs shouting ‘Won’t you ever leave me alone!’