WHO on earth came up with the idea of casting Billie Piper as Fanny Price in this made-for-TV adaption?

With her '80s-style bad perm and toothy grin she looks like she's just stepped out of a night-shift in a packing warehouse rather than out of the pages of a classic novel.

But Billie's Fanny (if one dare say it) was not the worst part of this scrappy soap-style production.

With just a two-hour running time this bumper tome was always going to need a deal of pruning, but it certainly didn't deserve the mauling the scripwriters gave it. Needless wholesale changes to the plot - what's that all about? Even Jane Austen wouldn't recognise parts of this.