Davison's Doodle

Sanditon: Season One Review

This is a guest post from my colleague Rev. Richmond B. Adams.

For several reasons perhaps, my wife and I find ourselves watching a good
deal of shows based in a Great Britain of either previous decades (All Creatures
Great and Small) or, as in the case of Sanditon, an earlier century. Based upon an
incomplete novel by the late eighteenth-century writer Jane Austen, the first season
portrays the adventures of Miss Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams), a farmer’s
daughter from an inland town of Willingden as she, by circumstance, comes to
Sanditon, a once-fishing village undergoing an attempted transformation into “the
most attractive destination on the south coast.” Even at her age of “one and
twenty” when she arrives, “Miss Heywood,” (as single women were properly
called during those years), carries a self-possession that allows her to enter the
inner circle of her hosts, Tom and Mary Parker (Khris Marshall and Kate
Ashfield), who also just happen to be the driving forces behind their town’s
metamorphosis.

Once settled, Miss Heywood comes upon a handsome stranger, Mr. Sidney
Parker (Theo James), a man of some mystery who just happens to be a mix
between a rakish boor, gallant gentleman, and the business-wise brother of her
host. With deep chagrin, Miss Heywood discovers that “Mr. Parker,” (again, those
proprieties) is one with no patience for pretense, which complicates their all-too-
obvious romantic tension as the season progresses. Swirling around such tension
are the third Parker brother Arthur (Turlough Convery) and Diana, sister to all the
Parkers (Alexandra Roach), whose presumably projected hypochondria toward
Arthur provides for a good dose of comic divergence from the escalating
uncertainty between Miss Heywood and the mysterious Mr. (Sidney) Parker.
Complicating matters even more is that the mysterious Mr. (Sidney) Parker is legal
guardian to a Miss Georgiana Lambe (Crystal Clarke), who stands to inherit a
notably significant estate from her late father, but has not reached the age when she
will have free access to its fortune. Much like Miss Heywood, her fast-upon friend,
Miss Lambe is independent minded, strong willed, and decidedly unwilling to be
confined to the expected tea parties, social gatherings, and in deference to the men
who surround as well as attempt to court her (she openly insults more than one
suitor, which is hilarious as well as deserved, we viewers are led to affirm).

Parallel with the winds of romance is the family drama of the Denhams, led
by the elderly and irascible Lady Denham (Anne Reid), her wretched nephew Sir
Edward (Jack Fox), more-complicated-than-it-first-appears niece Esther (Charlotte
Spencer), and a second manipulative niece Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky). These
relations are just distant enough to create entanglements, but not so separate as to
prevent each trying to out scheme the other to become first in line to obtain their
aunt’s significant estate. Lady Denham, of course, recognizes many of these
machinations, but tends to become distracted as she worries about how Tom of the
Parkers is managing to make good the return on her investment “in the future of
Sanditon.”

Naturally, there are other characters whose aspirations and desires make for
even more complicated arrangements, chief among them Young Mr. Stringer (Leo
Suter) whose interest in Miss Heywood increases alongside of his hopes for an
easier life than one endured by his father (Rob Jarvis), a proud bricklayer who tries
to warn his son not to desire something apart from his (without saying so, but
assumed) “divinely-ordained station.” It is only through Miss Heywood’s ever-so-
polite misdirection of Young Stringer’s intentions combined with his father’s tragic
death that convinces him to accept the invitation to become an architectural
apprentice in London. At last report, Young Stringer is well on his path to the
better life that he desires, and all is (sort of) well in Sanditon.

As one may imagine, however, contentment and social balance in such a
town as Sanditon can only be short lived. At virtually the same moment as the
mysterious Mr. (Sidney) Parker and Miss Heywood have seemingly overcome the
last of their obstacles between them and a happy life of marital joy save that of a
proper marriage proposal, he responds to brother Tom’s plea to rescue Sanditon
from a dreadful lack of business acumen (seems he did not have insurance to
replace buildings that burned in the fire that killed the older Stringer), and dashes
to London to arrange financing to prevent the town from figuratively sinking into
the English Channel. The mysterious Mr. (Sidney) Parker soon returns and has
saved the town, but at the expense of his happiness with Miss Heywood through
having agreed to marry his once-upon-a-time, but recently-reappeared long lost
love, Mrs. Eliza Campion (Ruth Kearney), herself the inheritor of substantial funds
from her late husband’s estate. Miss Heywood, with tears barely restrained,
adheres to the proprieties of her time by wishing “you (and Mrs. Campion) every
happiness,” even as one gets the idea that she has sworn herself not to seek
marriage again.

Sanditon, it is clear, quickly assumes the form of a soap opera whose broadly
drawn characters are either heroes or villains, and among whom there are wild
misunderstandings, melodramatic departures, and wrenching twists chosen only
from a true sense of heroism in order to prevent even greater disaster. When last
we see the mysterious Mr. (Sidney) Parker, as but one example, he is leaving the
village that his sacrifice has helped to preserve, knowing that his true love lies with
Miss Heywood, who further desires to leave her broken heart behind while she
ventures forth toward unknown encounters. Since, thankfully, there are three
seasons within the series, it only seems reasonable that somehow (at least) our
heroine will perhaps find her way back to the village where her charm, strength,
and wit will be her constant companions. I plan to share some more thoughts
concerning the two subsequent seasons as my wife and I finish viewing them on
Amazon Prime. I believe they might be also available through other streaming
outlets and, given their original American broadcast on PBS Masterpiece, on re-
runs there too. There are some sequences that are not for young children, but
overall, Sanditon is well worth watching.