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The Best...romantic hero

Colin Firth as Mr Darcy
  • Posted at 4:42pm
  • 20 December 2007
  • by ClaireWebb-RT

There's been no shortage of Jane Austen adaptations lately - there's another due on New Year's Day with BBC1's new version of Sense and Sensibility. No sooner has one suitor on horseback paraded past, than another dashing soldier is knocking at the door. And while it's pleasant enough admiring all these men in tight breeches, I'm never tempted to stray. My heart was won long ago by one particular set of sideburns - those of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Fictional journalist Bridget Jones was the first to openly fixate on Mr Darcy. An unmarried 30-something, she looked to Pride & Prejudice for comfort and hope. And it worked: Bridget found her own Fitzwilliam, renewing the faith of romantics everywhere. Suddenly, Darcy devotees were prepared to stand up and be counted. For every teenage girl who sighed over Swayze or pretended to be Pretty Woman, another was dreaming of a certain 19th-century gentleman.

Many women, fictional and non-fictional, seek a Mr Darcy. This is understandable: it's difficult to refuse a man who's both attractive and wealthy.

Of course, Darcy is not faultless. Initially he's proud and repulsive, snubbing the coarse country ways of Elizabeth Bennet and her family. The turning point comes when he proposes. Under Elizabeth's nonplussed gaze, Darcy stumbles over his words, pacing back and forth, back and forth… It's heart-rending.

Nor is any old Darcy worthy of devotion. In the recent Hollywood adaptation Keira Knightley eclipses her co-star Matthew Macfadyen, while 1940s favourite Laurence Olivier is simply too reserved to generate shivers of excitement. Handsome and haughty they may be, but other Darcys cannot live up to curly-haired Colin Firth in the BBC's 1995 adaptation. To think that he almost refused the role!

Colin Firth plays Darcy to perfection, almost too well: the role nearly consigned him to the romantic genre for ever. Lingering looks across the drawing room, candlelit prowling when he's too lovesick to sleep, the sexy strain of that frilled shirt…

Perhaps it's down to the classy get-up, for there's nothing quite like a white shirt to hint at the Latin lover beneath. Look no further than the famous scene at Pemberley for proof: Darcy emerges dripping from the lake, his shirt gloriously transparent - it's pure artistic licence and worth every sodden retake.

Like the BBC adaptation itself, this catalogue of classic Colin moments could go on and on. After five hours of will-they-won't-they suspense, Elizabeth finally accepts Darcy's hand in marriage. He doesn't clap his hands in joy or beam like a madman, but contents himself with a half-smile. And that's the secret to Darcy's success: you have to keep the ladies wanting more.

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