Jane Austen’s Emma has been reimagined for a 21st‑century audience in a fresh adaptation staged at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London. In Ava Pickett’s version, the title character meddles in her friends’ online dating profiles and party schedules as she navigates love and class in a world dominated by dating apps, “likes” and late‑night social scenes.
Amelia Kenworthy stars as Emma, with Kit Young as George Knightley and Sofia Oxenham as Harriet. The production is directed by Christopher Haydon, and Pickett is credited as the adaptor. Emma, in this version, returns home after failing her exams at Oxford and becomes the first in her working‑class family to attend university—a backstory that informs her ambivalence toward the life her father has carved out for them. Pickett, who grew up in Clacton, Essex, has spoken about how her own experiences shaped the mood of the play, weaving a sense of youthful defiance with a longing for belonging.
Pickett says she wanted to do a contemporary Emma rather than a period version after talking with friends about dating culture and realizing how much of Emma’s impulse to fix others still resonates in a world of apps and notifications. “I really identified with that feeling of [being] 21. She’s so young, but is on the cusp of adulthood. She believes she knows everything about everyone else’s life and what they need to do in order to get to happiness. She reminded me so much of me at that age,” Pickett explains.
The production leans into the weariness and bite that come with modern dating. Emma and her circle spend time in pubs and nightclubs rather than drawing rooms, and the obligatory social media check becomes a recurring motif in the plot. Kenworthy, who plays Emma, says the character’s decisions are motivated by a desire to help those she loves, even when her methods are messy. “Every choice she makes is because she’s just trying to help people, and it’s messy and it’s complicated. But her heart’s in the right place. She probably just needs to see a therapist!” she says with a wry smile.
Kit Young, who portrays Knightley, describes a relationship that feels both familiar and charged. “George is very astute, very smart. He doesn’t hate where he’s from, and he’s quite comfortable there. The one person that grinds his gears is Emma. You can absolutely love someone and hate someone at the same time,” he says, signaling a chemistry that modernizes the novel’s already prickly dynamic. The cast also includes Sofia Oxenham as Harriet, whose role has been expanded to foreground female friendship in a setting that keeps Emma’s gaze fixed on everyone else’s lives even as she confronts her own.
The James‑era sensibilities of Austen’s heroine are still present, but the play uses contemporary tools to explore core tensions. Pickett notes that technology is “just another lens of confusion” through which miscommunication proliferates. “We have more facility for communication, but that doesn’t mean we communicate any better, and that’s the chaos of it all,” she says, tying Emma’s matchmaking to today’s social media economy.
The show also addresses the toxicity some people associate with dating apps. Pickett calls the app‑driven world “brutal,” acknowledging that validation can come from how many likes or matches a person accumulates. “It becomes a kind of game, so a lot of your self‑worth is coming from a number on your screen,” she says. She adds that ghosting—long a trope in dating circles—can be especially cruel in the context of Emma’s attempts to help friends find happiness. “In my experience, a lot of young men have found the apps toxic too,” she adds, noting that the play critiques a value system that overlooks human complexity or awkwardness.
As Emma butts heads with Harriet over choices that affect their town, the production underscores how technology can complicate even intimate connections. Young describes the relationship as brisk but never rancorous, with Emma’s missteps reflecting a broader struggle to mature without losing empathy for others.
Two more notes anchor the production: the Rose Theatre version marks another entry in Austen’s ongoing cultural moment, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth. The year has already seen Miss Austen on BBC, a film adaptation of Emma starring Anya Taylor‑Joy, and the West End’s Clueless musical—yet this update aims to feel immediate and intimate by placing Emma squarely in a modern social milieu. There’s also a broader push to bring Austen closer to younger audiences by reimagining beloved stories through contemporary concerns, from online dating to online personas.
Emma is scheduled to run at the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London, from 17 September to 11 October 2025.
Audience members will find the production’s energy centered on Emma’s arc—how she navigates romance, friendship and class in a culture that rewards speed, spectacle and self‑presentation. The show promises brisk wit, sharp observations and a nuanced look at how a character born in a different era can still illuminate universal questions about happiness, belonging and the price of wanting to fix other people’s lives.
A further look at Austen’s enduring appeal comes from the production’s backers and collaborators, who emphasize the human core of Emma’s story: the desire to understand one’s own motives, the cost of meddling, and the moment of self‑recognition when one’s certainty begins to soften into empathy. The writing, performed with contemporary pacing and a kinetic stagecraft that leans into club culture and social dynamics, aims to balance tradition with relevance.
The Rose Theatre’s Emma represents a careful blending of Austen’s DNA with a modern sensibility—an adaptation designed to invite both Austen fans and a new generation to see how a story about matchmaking and social aspiration can still feel immediate when set against the backdrop of a nightclub, a dating app and a town parent who worries about a daughter who wants more than comfort and security.