Sanditon

It was a real pleasure to be asked to work on Sanditon Series 2 & 3 for Red Planet. I worked alongside co-composers Ruth Barrett (who scored series one) and Jon Wygens. As I’ve written in my post about Emma. (2020), I have been a huge Jane Austen fan since I was a teenager! Although she never finished Sanditon, only writing eleven chapters of the novel before her untimely death, it was enough for Andrew Davies to expand into an 8 part ITV / PBS series in 2019… Set around a fictional new seaside resort town, it introduced us to the heroine Charlotte Heywood, the Darcy-esque Sidney Parker, and the morally bankrupt Edward Denham as well as a host of others characters.

After a gap for Covid and a great online campaign to bring the show back (a very vocal group called the ‘Sisters of Sanditon’ lobbied PBS to carry on the story!), Season 2 finally hit the screens in 2022 and Season 3 in 2023, on ITV in the UK and on  Masterpiece in the US. I had worked with both Ruth and Jon before on the second and third seasons of Victoria, so it was lovely to collaborate again.

The music on Sanditon has a very folky vibe and using live players proved important in getting an earthy and exciting energy into the score. We called upon the talents of, among others, Phil Holland who played loads of fiddle and celtic harp on this soundtrack.

I’m very pleased to say that a soundtrack for Sanditon Series 2 & 3 is now released and is available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and elsewhere. Click here for a link.