This Week In Non-House Hugh Laurie: Sense and Sensibility

I'm a little late on the post this week. It was a long day at work and I just didn't have it in me to write anything. I'm sure I've lost all my readers now.

After watching Hugh Laurie in the following clip from the 1995 film adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, I have a feeling this may have been the movie that the casting directors for House saw that made them want Laurie for the role. As Mr. Palmer in the following montage, every line he utters oozes with contempt, specifically for his wife and a woman I'm assuming is his mother-in-law. It's almost as if it were a House episode in which he hallucinates himself as a Victorian-era Englishman. And considering some of the more recent plot lines in the show, I'm rather surprised it hasn't been done.



Now it's not unique to find the "put-upon husband" in anything by Jane Austen. But what sets Laurie apart is that he says even the most innocuous line in such a way that it's clear he's fantasizing about beating his wife to death with a blunt instrument. And I don't know about you, but I think that every Jane Austen novel would be a little more realistic if the men were physically abusive. It would certainly give the title Persuasion a whole new meaning.