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When will this cold end? It's unbearable. We're doing a few exteriors this week with the house party cast, and it's actually warmer outside than it is inside Haddon Hall.

"For TV drama the question is always 'what do we need?'"

I've got a few visitors this week - Caroline Skinner (script editor) and Phillippa Giles (executive producer). Phillippa is thrilled with the rushes and is keen to make sure that we keep up the quality, but not at the expense of, er, expense.

She, Caroline and I have numerous conversations about which horse-and-carriage scenes are important and which are not. Any more we can cut? Any fire or rain we don't need? Tedious questions, but for TV drama the question is always 'what do we need?' In big budget movies the question is 'what do we want?', but we don't have that luxury. It's a constant struggle to stay on budget, and to make sure the vision is complete and as fantastic as possible, but is also achievable on the money.

Excitement and speculation

One quiet afternoon while all is well on set, I retire to the office and have a little surf online. We haven't yet published a press release, but there's plenty of talk of our Jane Eyre on the web. Bits of information have been found from agents' websites, newspaper gossip columns, and bits of insider info. There's lots of excitement and speculation about our adaptation and I'm struck by how much this novel means to some people. I wish we had published our press release, because it would stop some of the confusion in some of the messages. But I don't yet have a photo I'm happy with, so no press release yet.

"Our actors are trying to inhabit the spirit of the characters in Sandy's script, not do impressions of what's described in a book."

On one website, a correspondent despairs at the idiocy of the people making the programme who've cast a 48-year-old actress as Jane Eyre. Don't they know that Jane is supposed to be in her late teens? Mmm, we do. It's just that * has mixed up two Ruth Wilsons. An actress born in 1958 is credited with playing Jane in our show.

Another website reports that the production has been ordering a good deal of timber. The supplier, using quotes supposedly from me, has said it's being used to create a 'late-Victorian look'. Lots of discussion then ensues about how we are getting it wrong, setting our adaptation so late, when it's really pre-Victorian. There is a simpler explanation - that the timber supplier has no idea what the wood is for or when the production is set, and has made-up all the quotes attributed to me.

Wrong lips?

Much speculation is reserved for the question of who should play Mr Rochester and whether it's a good or bad thing that Toby Stephens has been cast. I'm really struck by the literal and pedantic obsession many of the bloggers have with the physical traits of Rochester and Jane as described in the book. 'Too red-haired', 'Eye-brows are too thin' are some comments regarding Toby.

Elsewhere I read that 'Ruth's lips are wrong' and that the production is therefore bound to be a disaster. It's quite strange. Physical appearance is undoubtedly significant, but in the end what our actors are trying to do is inhabit the spirit of the characters in Sandy's script, not just do impressions of what's described in a book.