Sanditon S1

Never mind Jane Austen’s final novel being unfinished when she died in 1817 – it’s been turned into a fun but still fancy series. Welcome to the world of Sanditon. And boy, is it pretty!

Rose Williams plays Charlotte Heywood, a simple teenager with big dreams living in a quaint fishing village. But her life changes the day that wealthy ambitious businessman Tom Parker (Kris Marshall) rides in. Charlotte is dragged into the world of dreams, romance and social change as Tom sells his idea of turning the village into a holiday resort.

But around each corner comes a new experience and it’s not all roses for Rose, who read the script over 100 times after being cast. “Charlotte wants to see how the village is going to be flipped into a high-society, fashionable town and see how it’s being built and learn about business,” reveals Rose, adding that the ballgowns “were a wonderful plus! It’s not every day you swan around in a Jane Austen drama!”

“Every box is ticked off to great satisfaction or dull predictability depending on where you stand on the period drama tolerance scale,” writes theguardian.com’s Chitra Ramaswamy. “The seaside may be morally lax but that makes it the ideal location for [Andrew] Davies’s thematic concerns: all bonnet-teasing winds, wildly metaphorical seas, and the opportunity for people to get their kit off.”