ITV has been filming a lavish new costume drama based on Jane Austen’s novel Sanditon on Brean Beach this week.
The new series, Sanditon, will be an eight-episode series featuring the author’s final and incomplete novel.
Scenes for the new series, which is due to air on ITV1 later this year, have been filmed this week on Brean Down and Brean beach.
Brean Parish Council, which oversees the beach, approved the filming and temporarily removed several posts and signs to ensure the period scenes to look authentic.
Burnham-On-Sea.com took these photos of the filming on the beach during Friday.
The ITV series features Kris Marshall from the movie Love Actually, plus Curfew‘s Rose Williams, Downton Abbey‘s Theo James and Last Tango in Halifax‘s Anne Reid. The series is being headed up by BAFTA-winning screenwriter Andrew Davies, whose credits include Les Misérables and Pride and Prejudice.
Screenwriter Andrew Davies said: “Jane Austen managed to write only a fragment of her last novel before she died – but what a fragment! Sanditon tells the story of the transformation of a sleepy fishing village into a fashionable seaside resort, with a spirited young heroine, a couple of entrepreneurial brothers, some dodgy financial dealings, a West Indian heiress, and quite a bit of nude bathing. It’s been a privilege and a thrill for me to develop Sanditon into a TV drama for a modern audience.”
ITV’s Head of Drama, Polly Hill commented: “It’s a rich, romantic, family saga built upon the foundations Jane Austen laid. There is no one better to adapt her unfinished novel than Andrew who has an incredible track record for bold and original adaptations. We’re delighted to commission Sanditon from Belinda Campbell and her team at Red Planet Pictures.”
