Sanditon review: Jane Austen meets Love Island in this sexed up, cringe-worthy adaptation of her last, unfinished novel

The new ITV drama from prolific adaptor Andrew Davies is full of cliche and lacking in nuance

Think of a Jane Austen novel and Love Island doesn’t exactly spring to mind. And yet it’s hard not to compare Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Sanditon (ITV) with the ITV2 reality show.

Undemanding? Tick. Cringey dialogue? Tick. Beautiful people and scenery? Tick, tick. Even Davies himself, whose previous adaptations include War and Peace and Les Miserables, seems keen to make the comparison: he was recently quoted using such Love Island terminology as “fanny flutters”, “crack on” and “pied off” when discussing the relationships between the Sanditon​ characters.

The story revolves around Austen’s ingenue heroine, Charlotte, played by relative newcomer Rose Williams. She is taken to the eponymous seaside town by its indefatigable developer Tom Parker (Kris Marshall) after helping him during a horse and carriage accident. Once there, she meets a strange selection of locals, including numerous potential suitors, whose fortunes depend on Sanditon’s commercial success.

The original novel was never finished. Austen died in July 1817, having only written the first 11 chapters, but Davies, 82, has taken her foundation and written his own outcome for her characters. Tom Parker, the first person we meet, is obsessed with making Sanditon the next big thing, and cashing in on the ever-rising popularity of coastal holidays. Marshall gives a slightly distracted and frantic performance – he is too stiff here to believably portray an over-enthusiastic buffoon.

As Charlotte, Williams lacks sincerity, often lapsing into period drama caricature, all quivering mouth and shining, eager eyes. In fact, most of the performances here feel cliched and devoid of any nuance – not helped by the rather on-the-nose script. Before Charlotte heads off to Sanditon, her father gives her a word of warning. “Just be careful, that’s all,” he says. “Careful of what, Papa?” is Charlotte’s naive response. “Of everything.”

Anne Reid is convincing, however. As with her recent performance in the BBC drama Years and Years, she’s on deliciously feisty form, clearly relishing another matriarch role that requires a certain cruelty. Her Lady Denham, the wealthy grande dame of Sanditon, revels in her power over her poor relatives, who are all vying for her approval – and therefore her inheritance.

Davies uses up all of his Austen material within half an hour, then embraces the freedom this gives him to sex up the tale: in the first episode, Charlotte stumbles upon a sly handjob in the woods, gawks at bare-bottomed male swimmers prancing along the beach, and there are even hints at incest between Lady Denham’s niece and nephew, who is so slimy, he gives Love Island’s Curtis Pritchard a run for his money. Davies’s version of the story seems to be driven by who Charlotte will couple up with – will it be unctuous Edward Denham, tortured soul Sidney Parker or underdog Young Stringer? Either way, if you can’t wait for the winter series of Love Island, look no further.