{"id":8296,"date":"2021-12-26T10:05:55","date_gmt":"2021-12-26T09:05:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=195934"},"modified":"2021-12-26T10:26:11","modified_gmt":"2021-12-26T09:26:11","slug":"jane-digby-lindsay-duncan-on-playing-the-aristocratic-adventurer-in-around-the-world-in-80-days","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/jane-digby-lindsay-duncan-on-playing-the-aristocratic-adventurer-in-around-the-world-in-80-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Digby: Lindsay Duncan on playing the aristocratic adventurer in Around the World in 80 Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Jonathan Wright\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Sunday, 26 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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You guest-star as Jane Digby in an episode of a new drama based on Jules Verne\u2019s Around the World In 80 Days<\/i>. Who was she?<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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She was a real woman they\u2019ve put into the drama, which is a really clever idea. Years ago, someone had told me about a book called The Wilder Shores of Love<\/em> [1954, by travel writer Lesley Blanch]. It\u2019s an account of the lives of four quite extraordinary women. And one of them is Jane Digby [1807\u201381]. In the last part of her life, which is where we see her, she was married to an Arab sheik, Medjuel el Mezrab, and she spent half the year with the Bedouin in the desert in Syria.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

How did <\/span><\/strong>Jane Rigby <\/span>cope in this environment?<\/span><\/strong><\/h3>\n

Digby was more than capable of living that life, she was a brilliant woman. She raced camels, she fought in inter-tribal warfare, she knew how to look after animals and she gained a great deal of respect from her adopted people. What is very appealing is that this last part of her life was also the happiest. She was deeply in love. And she absolutely adored the Bedouin and the way of life, so she was a fulfilled woman.<\/p>\n

\""Jane\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Jane Digby (Lindsay Duncan) traverses the desert on a camel in this scene from the new BBC Jules Verne adaptation (Photo courtesy of the BBC)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

What was Jane Rigby\u2019s life like before this?<\/span><\/h3>\n
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A quarter of her life would be enough for most of us! She had several marriages and many, many lovers. She was a great romantic, but she was also a fearless and remarkable woman who spoke and read nine languages. She was very cultured. To me, it\u2019s clear that one of the reasons she was able to live the way she did was because she came from an aristocratic background, and she had some money.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She was able to get divorced young [and three times in total over her life], and then just go off to travel and have marvellous adventures. The skills she brought to living in the desert, she had learned as a country woman in Norfolk. Her grandfather [the politician Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester] owned Holkham Hall in Norfolk.<\/p>\n