{"id":12004,"date":"2020-01-16T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2020-01-17T09:46:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-17T14:46:41","slug":"andrew-davies-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/andrew-davies-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Davies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Television and film producers the world over have been finding creative inspiration in Jane Austen novels for decades, helping to keep her legacy alive more than 100 years after her death. There is perhaps no television writer in the U.K.\u2014or anywhere in the world, for that matter\u2014with more experience in adapting the beloved author\u2019s works than Andrew Davies. He gave us the classic 1995 take on Pride and Prejudice<\/em> with Colin Firth, Northanger Abbey<\/em> for ITV\u2019s Jane Austen season in 2007 and Sense and Sensibility<\/em> in 2008 (among numerous other classic book adaptations.) When Red Planet Pictures decided they wanted to take on Austen\u2019s unfinished manuscript Sanditon<\/em> as the basis for a new period drama, they knew exactly who to go to. For ITV in the U.K. and Masterpiece in the U.S., with BBC Studios handling global distribution, Sanditon<\/em> follows Charlotte Heywood (Rose Williams) as she moves to a coastal resort and encounters the mysterious businessman Sidney Parker (Theo James), among a slew of other characters. Davies tells TV Drama<\/em> about the experience of finishing Austen\u2019s last work, which she started writing in the final year of her life.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> How did you approach taking an 11-chapter fragment and continuing the characters\u2019 story arcs?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong> I\u2019d read it before and never really considered it, thinking it was a shame she didn\u2019t finish because I\u2019d have enjoyed adapting it. Then, looking at it afresh with the idea that maybe I could be the one to finish it, it seemed like a very exciting opportunity. Largely because it seemed like Jane Austen was treating it as a new departure, with different kinds of people in it. Entrepreneurs and businessmen rather than sedate country gentlemen, an energetic heroine and her first black character in Miss Lambe, the West Indian heiress. [Austen] gave us the premise, the set-up for the story, and never really got the plot started. So it was just a big opportunity.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Tell us about the journey viewers will take over the course of the eight episodes.
\nDAVIES:<\/strong> We go into the story through Charlotte, who is in some ways a bit of an innocent. She\u2019s lived on the family farm for all her years. She\u2019s never been more than five or ten miles from home. On the other hand, she is the oldest of 12 children, so she\u2019s had a lot of opportunity to look after other people. She\u2019s had a lot of responsibility. She\u2019s got her own opinions about life. And she is a nice character through whose eyes we can look at Sanditon and all the people in it. So it starts off as one of those \u201cyoung girl goes into a strange place and has adventures\u201d stories, which, in Jane Austen\u2019s canon, links it up with something like Northanger Abbey<\/em>. And then we get to know the other characters bit by bit. Tom Parker is a key character because he\u2019s the one who is making all the action happen. He\u2019s trying to turn a tiny fishing village into a grand seaside resort with all the bells and whistles, something like a 19th-century Boardwalk Empire<\/em>. And then there\u2019s the rest of his family. Very significant is his younger brother Sidney, who is a bit of a mystery man, a wheeler and dealer, an adventurer with a dark past, who is nevertheless very loyal to Tom and very much invested in helping him bring his project to fruition. And, of course, we\u2019re looking out for possible love matches for Charlotte. Sidney is one, Sir Edward is possibly another and, as the story develops, another one comes on the scene. So it\u2019s about love, it\u2019s about business, it\u2019s about race, it\u2019s about female emancipation, it has all those things.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Based on your research, do you have a sense of Jane Austen\u2019s state of mind when she was writing Sanditon<\/em>?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong> We all think she wrote it when she was dying, but she didn\u2019t know she was dying. She just thought she was feeling not quite [in good health]. In fact, the spirit of the book goes completely counter to any idea of failing strength or spirit. It\u2019s full of lightness and joy. There\u2019s a key scene when Charlotte arrives at Sanditon and she looks out the window at the sunlight glittering and dancing on the waves, and I thought, what a lovely sensation. Let\u2019s try and capture that sensation of brightness and lightness all the way through this story. And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s being false to Jane Austen at all. It\u2019s one of her funniest books. She just has great fun mocking all the hypochondria and fancies of the people who come to the seaside. That\u2019s part of it. Also, I wanted to make it into a romantic story as well.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> Why do you think her work has been so incredibly well suited to TV and film adaptations, sometimes more than once for a single story?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong> Her typical story, at the heart of it, was a sort of fairy tale in which a lovely but disadvantaged heroine gets a happy ending. And within that, she always has interesting characters. She sharply satirizes a lot of them, and she writes wonderful scenes, wonderful dialogue. She gives you a kind of romantic story without ever insulting your intelligence. You always feel she\u2019s a little bit brighter than you are when you\u2019re reading her. She keeps you up to the mark and you can always find new things in her stories. At the heart of it, it\u2019s the romantic story plus the intelligence and the deep insight into characters.<\/p>\n

TV DRAMA:<\/strong> BBC Studios will be looking to roll this out globally this MIPCOM. Is there anything else you\u2019d like broadcasters and platforms to know about Sanditon\u00a0<\/em>and how it might resonate with their audiences?
\nDAVIES:<\/strong> I want them to enjoy it. Have a good time with it. I want it to be a show that you look forward to switching on because it\u2019s full of vibrant young characters. It\u2019s like Love Island<\/em>, I guess, only Jane Austen\u2019s version!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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