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Inside Out Inside Orbital

Published Sat, 05 Jan 2013 10:00:12 -0600

Orbital Comics in London became a makeshift television studio yesterday, when BBC 1 used it to record an episode of the current affairs show Inside Out.

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the release of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice on January 28th, they gathered a group of reluctant reader teens from a youth club in Winchester and took them to several places connected with Jane Austen, where they met 'special guests' to educate and inspire them to read including comic writer (and adapter of Austen mash-up Pride And Prejudice And Zombies) Tony Lee and acclaimed novelist Ewan Morrison. And of course they visited Orbital Comics in London. Which doesn't have anything to do with Jane Austen, but has a lot of very readable comics.

When I was there with my kids, I saw Tony being interviewed about the benefits of reluctant readers and comics, using his 'Change The Channel' mantra to explain this, and I shared my own thoughts (nicked by Tony on camera later after I had to leave) on the similarities between Pride And Prejudice and the Bridget Jones Diary – to the extent that the main "love interest" is called Mark Darcy and in the movie is played by the BBC's Darcy, Colin Firth)

Chris Thompson of Orbital Comics snapped this photos of Tony being interviewed, while the teens with visiting LA comic scribe and screenwriter Paul Salamoff was taken from a tweet to Noel Clarke.

(from left to right: Dale, Heleena, Paul, Kalib, Kelsey and Brittany)

Inside Out's Jane Austen and Comics special will be on BBC One at 7.30pm on the 28th January, and most likely on iPlayer seconds after.

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