Sydney meeting
Mr Darcy’s Niece
Penny Ashton

Join award-winning – globetrotting Kiwi and comedy performer, Penny Ashton, as she takes JASA members through the trials and tribulations of bringing Austen’s works to stages around the world. The brain behind three separate Austen inspired theatrical shows (Promise and Promiscuity, Austen Found and Sense & Sensibility), Ashton is also the 5th great-niece of Austen’s flirtation, Thomas Langlois Lefroy, who some have theorised was an inspiration for Mr Darcy himself.

Penny will talk about her famous relative via her Australian mother, about his nephew (and her 3rd great-grandfather) outback explorer Gerald DeCourcy Lefroy, and about who the hell she thinks she is putting words in Jane Austen’s Mouth.

Penny has performed over 1000 solo shows from Auckland to Edinburgh to Perth. She is well known for plundering great works of literature by Austen, Dickens and Shakespeare and creating lively, comedy musicals in fond and utterly hilarious tributes to them.

“It’s difficult to tell where Austen ends and Ashton begins in this delightful show” 5 Stars CBC Canada

“Jane Austen would be spinning in her grave… with delight.” 5 stars, Rip it Up, Adelaide