When ITV’s racy Jane Austen adaptation Sanditon was cancelled in 2019 after the first series, fans were not happy. The six-part series based on the writer’s unfinished final novel may not have hit the ratings the channel had hoped for, but it created a passionate following around the world, and they mobilised.
“There was an amazing response from the self-titled Sanditon Sisterhood of women across the world, which I think is really sweet,” says Rose Williams, who stars in the leading role of the headstrong, independent-minded Charlotte Heywood in the show. There was particular support from bonnet-fanciers in America, and, closer to home, a group who called themselves the “Sanditalians”.
