2025: a proliferation of anniversaries
Not only (but also) Austen
2025—a quarter century year.
A milestone moment in its own right.
Certainly the big Austeniversary being front and centre in my mind may have sharpened the scent for celebratory interconnections, but it really does seem that every day provides news of another interesting and surprising cultural birthday being marked this year.
Grab your party hat and blower and let’s dive down an anniversary rabbit hole—I hope we find cake.
Let’s start with the most obvious.
As I’m sure you’re well aware by now, 2025 marks 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth on 16th December 1775. I’m celebrating this anniversary by revisiting all her books on a wonderful slow readalong that will take us through the year (thank you,
). Of course I’m taking the opportunity to enhance my reading experience by diving deep into the various adaptations and a whole host of articles, biographies, documentaries and Austen-adjacent books and films as I go, and I’ll continue to share my thoughts and discoveries in my newsletters (ICYMI: first two here and here).But wait, what’s this?
There are Austeniversaries within the Austeniversary!
1995 is well-known for being a magical year for the adaptation of Austen’s work. Thirty years ago, four of her novels were remade for the screen (big and small), and very successfully so. These four adaptations are some of the most memorable and enduring (and in the final instance modern) retellings of her novels in what has become a very crowded marketplace.
So a very happy 30th birthday to Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, Roger Michell’s Persuasion, Andrew Davies’ Pride and Prejudice and Amy Heckerling’s Clueless.
I will talk about each of these excellent adaptations in depth when discussing the books they are adapted from through the year, but for a fascinating conversation about adapting Austen’s work for the screen (which includes reference to three of the 1995 four), I’ll refer you back to this Jane Austen’s House lecture with Sam West, Laura Wade and Professor Kathryn Sutherland. The book that they recommend—Paula Byrne’s The Genius of Jane Austen: Her Love of Theatre and Why She is a Hit in Hollywood—is also an excellent source of interesting discussion on these adaptations.
However, just because I’m currently reading and researching around Sense and Sensibility, I’ll offer you a couple of special bonus anniversaries relating to the cast of Ang Lee’s beautiful film—this year sees the incredible Kate Winslet celebrating her 50th birthday and Robert Hardy (who played the never-not-chuckling Sir John Middleton) would have been 100.
Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice film adaptation came exactly ten years after this infamous quartet, and it is (an unbelievable) twenty years since Macfadyen Darcy’s much analysed and swooned over ‘hand flex’ arrived on screen.
Let’s move away from bonnets and empire lines, and head somewhere a little more stylish. I read yesterday that it is a hundred years since Coco Chanel unveiled the gorgeous boucle boxy jackets the brand are still famous for to this day. It is quite mind-boggling to think that these jackets remain an instantly recognisable and utterly coveted fashion piece after one hundred years. In case your budget doesn’t run to the £2000+ necessary to celebrate this particular anniversary in actual Chanel style, this excellent article will help you find a ‘Chanel-style’ alternative.
You think I can’t interconnect this anniversary to Jane Austen?
As if!
The Chanel-style tweed suit is an absolute icon piece for fashion-loving, Emma-in-disguise, Cher Horowitz in Clueless—this article is fascinating on the creation of a legendary high-end wardrobe on a low budget.
Bought an original Chanel tweedy jacket direct from Coco a hundred years ago?
Then you might well have been in town (aka Paris) for the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Yes, the centenary of art deco is also being celebrated this year, as the Paris Exposition of 1925 is considered a defining moment in this much-loved (by me) art movement. I really enjoyed this art deco centenary primer article that I saw on Notes (apologies for not taking the name of the writer who shared it before it disappeared forever (eye roll)—if you know, please let me know in the comments).
As a big fan of all things art deco, I feel like this centenary merits a deep dive essay of its own at some point this year. I have a collection of beautiful books on the subject and this provides an excellent reason to actually get them off the shelf and enjoy the gorgeousness within. Add to that the fact that the literary epitome of art deco, F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is also one hundred years old and surely the only thing to be done is to celebrate in style—just as Jay would have wanted.
(NB: Please prepare yourself for the inclusion of most overused gif in the history of overused gifs, but in a context that is actually completely appropriate.)
Here’s to you, old sport!
First released in 1965, and to be celebrated no doubt by a rousing chorus of harmonies from the Von Trapp Family Singers, nuns v. Nazis classic The Sound of Music is 60 years old this year.
There are so few films that endure and are enjoyed by generation after generation. This seems particularly to be the case with family films, as the lives and likes of our children change at a pace that is hard to keep up with. I’m sure many of us have shared (a few of) our favourite things from childhood with our kids, hoping to bond over a new mutual fave, instead met with ennui-heavy eye rolls or (worse) our own disappointment that time has done a number on our memories. Of course, look further back, we were the eye rollers.
So The Sound of Music is a rare gem that I watch with my daughter on repeat—maybe or maybe not on singalong mode. She loves Maria singing her way between fear and feistiness in I Have Confidence. I love Maria and the Captain descending into full-on soft-focus romance mode in Something Good (ah, here are the eye rolls). And we both get grumpy with the inappropriateness of the choir of nuns listing all Maria’s faults and general problematical nature in beautiful song form as she walks down the aisle at her own wedding.
I so very nearly included Maria and Captain Von Trapp’s Laendler in my Dance, Magic Dance newsletter a few weeks ago. So here it is to celebrate their 60th anniversary:
This is a great article on the enduring joy of this classic movie for so many of us, and this Substack newsletter offering an alternative perspective on the snarky Baroness is an excellent read:
The icon that is Julie Andrews will be celebrating her 90th birthday later this year. And it’s only a small leap of Poppinsian interconnection to take us to the irrepressible Dick Van Dyke, who will be celebrating his centenary in December.
A veritable youngster at a mere 20 years old this year, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go was published in 2005. It also happens to be 15 years since the film adaptation was released. Ishiguro’s haunting, dystopian, coming-of-age tale narrated by Kathy H went on to become an absolute bestseller. The Guardian and the New York Times both placed it in the top ten of their 100 best books of the 21st Century. I thoroughly enjoyed this article where Ishiguro reflects on the novel and on the encroachment of AI in the arts and life in general.
If you’re inspired to read or reread (I am), Faber has published a special anniversary hardback edition.
The deeply warm and reassuring voice of so many of our childhoods, Oliver Postgate would have been 100 this year. With Peter Firmin, he created Smallfilms, which was responsible for some of the most unforgettable stop-motion children’s programmes that remain firmly etched in our memories. I was over the moon to get hold of the Tottie series (based on Rumer Godden’s brilliant The Doll’s House)—I remember being so shocked by that as a child! Bagpuss (my absolute favourite) was 50 last year—true story: my daughter is named after a Bagpuss character (not Professor Yaffle).
Here’s a wonderful documentary on Postgate and Firmin, and an interview with Emily Firmin to mark Bagpuss’ 50th anniversary:
There are so many other cultural anniversaries being celebrated in 2025:
- ’s brilliant memoir, Just Kids is 15
Coles Corner by Richard Hawley is 20—an album so good it caused Alex Turner to proclaim “Somebody call 999. Richard Hawley’s been robbed!” when the Artic Monkeys won the Mercury Music Prize instead
Highly feted debut novel, White Teeth, is 25 (and its highly rated author, Zadie Smith, is 50)
ABBA’s Mamma Mia (album, not musical, or film of musical) is 50
The first book in Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse series was published 50 years ago
Second, but most famous of CS Lewis’ Narnia books, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is 75
Charlie Brown’s first appearance in a comic strip was 75 years ago
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway was published a hundred years ago (somehow fascinating that this is a contemporary of The Great Gatsby)
And the New Yorker is also celebrating a centenary.
Interconnection icon of the week award
Carey Mulligan—who is celebrating a big birthday (40) of her own this year, naturally—hands down takes my inaugural interconnection icon of the week award, as she features in the film adaptations of Never Let Me Go, The Great Gatsby AND Pride and Prejudice. For bonus points she also connects neatly back to last week’s newsletter as she played self-serving, queen of the faux friends, Isabella Thorpe, in Andrew Davies’ Northanger Abbey adaptation.
Excellent work, Carey!
So there you go, 2025 gives us a lot of excuses to celebrate!
I am interconnected with a few real-life humans celebrating special birthdays this year—I hope this newsletter will leave them feeling happy to be younger than Aslan, a gang of spark-plug stealing nuns, a Chanel jacket and, erm, Jane Austen!
Any culturally iconic anniversaries I’ve missed? Let me know in the comments.
Have a wonderful weekend and thanks, as ever, for reading.
Jane Austen and Samuel West, Cher Horowitz, and Maria dancing with the Captain? What a lovely gift to improve our weekends. Thank you!
(And this reminds me that although I've seen all of Inspector Lewis and Endeavor, I've never actually watched (or read) Inspector Morse. He may have to wait until after the Year of Jane, however.)
Are you referring to me and my 50th? 🤣 So honoured to be sharing a milestone anniversary with these amazing people and their art!