My Sanditon stay this Autumn in August has a strange side trip

Welcome back to more Autumn in August highlights as we continue to visit Sanditon , season one.

 The main focus of the day are episodes five and six, which sadly sideline my favorite character and shove the spotlight onto Charlotte and Sidney, whose romance is rather basic, if you ask me:

A Sporting Distraction 

As you may recall, Georgiana Lambe(the best character) was having a secret romantic relationship with Otis,that was strongly objected to by Sidney(Miss Lambe’s reluctant guardian). Charlotte , therefore, has become a go-between in keeping the correspondence flowing by sending out and picking their mutual love letters.

With the annual cricket match coming up, Charlotte and 
Georgiana see this event as a good opportunity for a quick visit with Otis. 

That distraction is further aided by Charlotte stepping into the game as a late replacement for the beleaguered Tom Parker, embarrassed at being called out for not paying his workers on the town renovation crew(which he rightly deserved to be publicly challenged on as those men have families to feed and bills to pay there, sir!).

Charlotte is no stranger to the game, coming from a large family in the country where such games are played by whoever is on hand. This twist of fate does take everyone’s eye off of Georgiana , which turns out to be both good and bad there:

Unfortunately, this leads to a plot line where Georgiana gets kidnapped and almost forced into marriage in order to cover Otis’ gambling debts(he had nothing to do with that plan as his mail had been swiped by his creditors).

This brings Sidney and Charlotte together as they head to London separately to find Georgiana and wind up teaming to track her down. It ultimately ends with a traveling coach race that saves Georgiana but ends her relationship with Otis, for now at least.

 This is such a melodramatic story line that could’ve come right out  of a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe, a popular writer of such tales who was lovingly spoofed by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey , so I suppose it fits here. After all, Sanditon is an unfinished novel and Northanger Abbey was published posthumously, so the inspiration is in tune with Austen’s tastes.

Ballroom Blitz, Take Two

With Sidney and Charlotte being thrown together like this, a sort of affectionate feeling arises between them yet I’m still not fully convinced of their mutual attraction at all.

They attend a masked ball in London, part of a ploy by Tom to get folks interested in attending the upcoming regatta (boating exhibition) in Sanditon, which might not be even happening if the cantankerous Lady Denham dies(there’s a whole subplot with her potential demise and her relatives making devious plans regarding her will but I would prefer more Georgiana drama, if you ask me).

Back at the ball, Charlotte starts to have serious feelings for Sidney and confesses them to a complete stranger, a noble lady named Susan(who seems much nicer than a similarly named leading lady from an early Austen work):

With such newly found encouragement, Charlotte joins Sidney in the dance floor and the two of them seem to be on their way to true love. Of course, that won’t last for long as Sidney runs into a former lady friend who happens to recently widowed. Yep, another bad break on the rocky road to love indeed!:

I intend to wrap this revisit ti Sanditon up soon but might just for fun, have a rewatch of the 2007 adaptation of Northanger Abbey, which is available on PBS Passport along with all three seasons of Sanditon. 

Since Andrew Davies, the writer who has adapted many classic works such as the iconic Pride and Prejudice miniseries, also did this version of NA and Sanditon as well, having all of this readily available via public television is a great convenience that is surprisingly affordable. Plus, supporting public television in these troubling times is a small yet vital way to do what you can towards bringing about better days to some.

Next time, we will be covering the final two episodes of season one of Sanditon and yes, there are some shocking surprises in store, especially for Charlotte!: