Sanditon Episode 1 Review

Costume dramas and classic literature adaptations are often a staple of British television. Sanditon was the latest example of this – an adaptation of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel.

Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) was a young, attractive woman living on her family estate with 11 siblings. When a carriage crashes nearby the Heywoods help the occupants, Tom and Mary Parker (Kris Marshall and Kate Ashfield); Charlotte decides to travel with them to Sanditon which Tom and Lady Denham (Anne Reid) plan to develop into a seaside resort. This gives the young woman her first exposure to the wider world.

Sanditon was a big production for ITV and Red Planet Pictures. Andrew Davies was hired to write the series. Davies is a man who has a history of adapting classic literature. He recently adapted War & Peace and Les Misérables for the BBC and he is most famous for writing the 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries. There is no doubting his credentials and knowledge. Although he had a different task because Austen died before finishing the novel, so he had artistic license to create his own story.

The first episode mostly sticks to a standard Austen trail. Charlotte is a sharp, young woman in the vein of Elizabeth Bennett and set to have a frosty relationship with the romantic lead. So far so typical for any Austen fans.

The creators stated that they’re going to make a darker and more sexed-up version of an Austen story. The first episode had bared naked male asses on screen. A darker scene was when Charlotte catches two characters having a secret liaison in the woods and doing something that wouldn’t normally be in an Austen adaptation. Towards the end of the episode the people attending the opening ball were shocked to find out one of the wealthy women moving to the town, Miss Lamb (Crystal Clarke) was black. The trailers for the show Miss Lamb will suffer from racist discrimination and harassment in later episodes.

The first episode main aim was to introduce the characters and the major plotlines. Charlotte was the audience surrogate – she was the new girl in town who gets introduced to many of the characters and their interpersonal relationships. Charlotte makes friends with Clara (Lily Sacofsky) and Esther (Charlotte Spencer) who were rivals with each other. Charlotte comments that Tom is devoted to his project which resulted in him ignoring his family. When Charlotte meets her love interest, Sydney (Theo James) he was dismissive of the young woman and he launches a scathing takedown at the end of the episode.

A smaller plotline introduced in the episode was Tom’s brother, Arthur (Turlough Convery) trying to woo Miss Lamb because he’s a gold digger. Convery looked and acted like a British version of Josh Gad.

The highlight of the episode was Anne Reid as Lady Denham. She was a no-nonsense matriarch, similar to Countess Grantham from Downton Abbey. She wants to see a return on her investment in Sanditon and she states that there are many people circling around so they inherit her fortune. Lady Denham also states that she doesn’t intend to die soon.

When Charlotte enters Sanditon for the first time the town was being developed and built up, giving the show an almost Western feel. It was like how the town of Deadwood being developed and evolved in the HBO series Deadwood. Lady Denham pointed out that times were changing, that land was no longer valuable and the real money was in industry. These are fun little nuggets for history enthusiasts.

The first episode of Sanditon was a perfectly watchable piece of television that does the job of setting up its characters and potential plotlines.