This splendid BBC dramatization brings to life all the glorious wit and sharp humour of Jane Austen's - arguably her finest - novel Emma, recreating her most irritatingly endearing female character, of whom she wrote "no one but myself could like."

Emma presides over the small provincial world of Highbury with enthusiasm, but she will find that it is all too easy to confuse good intensions with self-gratification. the often insensitive, ever well-meaning, incorrigible Emma Woodhouse having engineered the marriage of governess, companion and friend to Miss Taylor, now turns her attention towards making a match for Mr. Elton, the local vicar, and her new protégée, Harriet Smith. Her one voice of reason and restraint is Mr. Knightley, who has known her since she was a child and who watches her behaviour with wry amusement and sometimes anger.