Siân Robinson Davies, ‘Explaining Sense and Sensibility to an Old Deer’ (2010)

“Wollaton Hall is a 16th century house in Nottingham, with grounds inhabited by freely roaming deer and rooms housing a vast collection of taxidermy animals, and is said to have influenced Jane Austin’s novel Sense and Sensibility. In Explaining Sense and Sensibility to an Old Deer I read sections of the book to a dead stag, while explaining human traits such as irony, sadness, empathy, sexist humour and equal opportunities by trying to equate them to social situations that the deer might once have found itself in.”