Sanditon ITV

[JaneJeffer]

Anyone watching?

How does the farm girl who got picked up in the carriage know how to do ballroom dancing and where did she get her lovely dresses from?

She's the daughter of a "country gentleman".

Jane Austen only wrote a couple of chapters of this before her death didn't she? The rest has just been made up...?

Eleven chapters.

History of Swimwear on Wikipedia states that while male nude bathing definitely did occur, and each resort would have been free to make their own rules, it still would have been unusual when ladies were present in any town/ resort keen on a reputation of respectability. It lists the Bath rules on adolescent and adult men not bathing naked for example.

Agree, it's very ITV.

I loved Andrew's Les Miserables but this is a huge let down. The acting is wooden and the script is dire. The special effects were crap. It doesn't have the air of Austen at all.

Three episode rule: if it doesn't get better within 3 eps, dump it.

What was really bugging me was that Lady Denhams house was also Warleggan House in Poldark. (Dyrham House near Bath)

ITV wasted lots of money on this crap, when they could have made more episodes of the brilliant Home Fires!

So true about Home Fires!

I was really distracted by the fact that the leading lady was also the leading lady in Vanity Fair. Said this to dh who said oh no she isn't. Quick check on IMDb and he is right. Still distracted me though.

That was annoying me too MyOtherProfile. I had to check IMDB during the first ad break and then I was vaguely irritated with her for looking so much like that other actress!

The set was awful. It has that foggy, faraway but close look about it. Hard to imagine how they could make it look so poor with all today's technology.
The music at the ball was a highlight for me - I straightaway likened it to Gentleman Jack.
Anne Reid has such an interesting career. She's so believable in every part she plays.

Ive never read Jane Austin nor watched any drama based on her books on TV.

And watching this tripe, I understand why!

Oh and ive got to the but where she sees her room, and said “forget it”.

Oh no! This thread is making me sad.

I've got it recorded and was planning on watching once I have a few episodes. I love JA but if this is a bit shit I may not bother...

Lindormilk you do realise that Sanditon was only a fragment of an unfinished novel, and about 70% of what you saw on screen was made up by Andrew Davies?

Also - Austen.

It was naff...but easy-watching. I think I'll continue with it.

I'm undecided on this yet. I've loved most Jane Austen adaptations, apart from the Keira Knightley P&P, and, to be strictly fair, the 1940 P&P film version with Laurence Olivier, but there is so little original Austen in this it's difficult to judge. A lot of location shooting is local to me, so it's interesting from that point of view. I think I'll need to watch it again, if only to get my head round all the characters. It's probably best watched as an Austen influenced/inspired drama and see where it goes.

@Lindormilk, Jane Austen is a genius. Judging her by this is unreasonable. She left only eleven very rough chapters of Sanditon, which she abandoned, presumably because it wasn’t up to her usual standards, and it is deeply unlike any of her completed work — she had no idea it would be published, far less that it would be taken and loosely adapted by AD. What you are seeing is inevitably far more AD than JA.

Still not buying it.

I prefer a good Welsh book tbh. Rarely read but if i do its Welsh

Lindor, why do you restrict yourself to Welsh books?

Your loss, Lindormilk.

Dodgy cgi-ing of the sea behind the very landlocked Dyrham Park (Lady Denham's house). Dodgy cgi sets all round, to be honest. Not warming to any of the characters so far. All very lacking in personality.

I think we should just forget the JA connection - obv ITV were hoping to hook in her fans. Just best to enjoy it as a preposterous Sunday eve Regency farce. A new writer undertook to create a whole new adventure for Poldark, and that wasn't anywhere as brilliant as the original author's work.

I think we should just forget the JA connection

That sounds like a good idea. Mind you, I am a huge Austen fan to the point where I can recite long chunks of the novels, which I reread regularly, almost verbatim, and I've only ever read the Sanditon fragment once, and didn't much like it then, it's so different in tone from her other published work. And it's significant she didn't finish it. I think she decided herself it wasn't a goer.

Just because i do.

I thought that most people thought that Sanditon was Jane Austen recognising the the word was changing and that she needed to reflect it. ie drawing rooms and country parks were not as relevant as the increase in self made men (were there also self made women??) who through money were breaking into a world quite isolated from the hurly burly of life.

And she didn't finish it because she was dying Who knows what direction her writing would have taken if she had lived into the start of the Victorian era.

She was by upbringing a Georgian, so wonder how much of her novels is in fact that upbringing commenting on a Regency society.

So to continue to bring in money to her family she may well have thought she needed to reflect the changes happening.

Oh, I didn't realise this was on. I have a couple of copies of Sanditon finished by others. One is very bad and the other is plausible but still not Jane Austen.

I've always wondered if the name was a joke - Sandy Ton.

Loved the music and didn't mind this even though it is very hammy.

Anne Reid's voice does grate on me - whatever she is in.