The Poster
Dear friends,
You will have instantly recalled that a couple of years ago now I wrote a review in praise of Chris Brindle’s filmed play adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sanditon as continued by Anna Lefroy. At the time I watched a DVD of the play as available on-line, and linked into my review, the beautiful duet at its center, The Blue Briny Sea. I’ve since heard papers on Sanditon and its sequel history at JASNA, in one case confirming that Chris Brindle’s perspective on the novel is valid: the novel fragment exposes the commercial world, is innovative and takes Anna Lefroy’s perspective centrally into account. I also put on my blog another song he wrote, both lyrics and podcast, as sung by Clara Chevallerau, “When did you realise/That your life would soon come to an end:” the song re-imagines Austen’s deep grief at understanding she was going to die young, “A song for Jane.”
Now he’s taken that narrative as a backbone or storyline for a musical of Sanditon, and it’s going to play in London at Lloyd Webber’s seedbed theatre for new musicals, “The Other Palace” in Victoria, London. This is a narrated concert version of a proposed full stage production. They are using a small stage in a cabaret like environment.
Fern and Sam in concert, a sort of rehearsal
aAtor/musicians Hannah Siden (in green) and Emi Del Bene (in blue) in costume at Greyfriars Colchester (original hotel built in 1755)
Hanni and Emi again, now in modern dress
The six person actor/musicians narrate the story of Austen and Lefroy’s Sanditon and the story behind it. The actors identify with each of the characters in the book and reflect on their own experiences “200 Years Later”. The music is a kaleidoscope of pop/rock, Savoy Opera and musical theater styles reflecting the nature of the 19th and 21st Century characters. In this way the satirical and comedic nature of the original is preserved. So it’s post-text and mash-up put together.
Here are the songs:
SONGS TITLE SUNG BY
1) “In My Imagination” – ANNA the 21st Century singer/song writer in a girl band
2) “Song For Jane Austen” 21st Century ensemble
3) “Speculation” Tom Parker & Jack Heywood
4) “Opportunity” Charlotte Heywood
5) “Enough In This Place For Me?” Tom Parker, Mary Parker, Charlotte Heywood
6) “How Really Sick We Are” Diane, Arthur and Susan Parker
7) “Books” Members of the Sanditon Subscription Lending Library
8) “Shallow” Charlotte Heywood
9) “Rock Quadrille” Girls in Mrs Griffith’s Finishing School
10) “Isn’t It Obvious” Letitia Beaufort
11) “Blue Briny Sea” Charlotte Heywood & Sidney Parker
12) “Breaking Out” Clara Brereton
13) “Nouveau Riche & Parvenue” Lady Denham
14) “The Life We’re Born Into” Miss Lambe, Charlotte, Clara
15) “Addiction” Sidney Parker & Mr Tracy
16) “Dishonoured” Lady Denham, Sidney & Tom Parker
17) “I Can See The Future” 19th Century ensemble
You can find updates on the musical in rehearsals on http://www.Sanditon.info, and I have now listened to a few podcasts: a witty, fast-moving “How really sick we are,” a theme song, “Speculation,” and the beautiful finale, “I can see the future.” I would share these with you if I knew how to operate drop-box. Alas, I do not.
Like all musicals, what one would go for includes the appealing music, so to try to convey some of this to you, I link in a YouTube video of a rehearsal of “In my imagination,” the opening idea:
Here are a few of his notes (his thoughts) on this first production:
I am hugely excited by doing this. I get the chance to tell young actor/musicians about Austen’s and Lefroy’s writing and see them take on Austen’s characters, and express their lives in words and music, and bring to the piece their understanding and commentary of the piece in their own lives “200 Years Later”.
It is so hard to put new work on somewhere where it will get noticed, so I am delighted to get this slot at “The Other Palace” which has possibly the youngest and most “happening” audience of any theatre in London and they obviously thought they were taking quite a risk with something as “old fashioned” sounding as something with “Jane Austen” in the title. Austen obviously knew that the English seaside resort would develop which was why she chose it as a setting, and why she chose property speculation and money and finance as her subject matter. These would be subjects that would always be with us. Looking back, the fascinating thing about a 21st Century Cast that acts out the 19th Century past, is how little they had in the 19th Century, and so thought wouldn’t it be great to have the 19th Century cast sing about all the things that they hoped might come true as their brand new seaside resort develops
Chris Brindle, March 2016
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
See JASNA 2017, at Huntington Beach: Austen fervency: continuations, sequels & variations:
https://reveriesunderthesignofausten.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/jasna-2017-at-huntington-beach-austenfervencycontinuationssequelsvariastions/
Scroll down. If you cannot reach the blog and its pictures, here is the text in question: my summary of a paper at one of the “break-out” sessions:
Mary Marshall’s “Sanditon: Inspiring Continuations, Adaptations, and Spin-offs for 200 Years” (Session D) drew me because I’ve gotten to know Chris Brindle’s filmed play, Sanditon and have the edition of Sandition by Prof Marshall which includes Anna Lefroy’s continuation, which Marshall was respectful of. She began with the larger picture: Sanditon is the least adapted of the novels, Pride & Prejudice the most adapted, with Emma at this point coming in second (though S&S is still a strong contender for second place). Sanditon was first known to the public in 1871 when James Edward Austen-Leigh described it, summarizing it in the 2nd edition of the Memoir. It was first published in 1925; 1954 Chapman made a much more accessible edition; it is the largest surviving manuscript we have (longer than The Watsons, though The Watsons is far more polished and finished, with implications much fuller as to how it was to proceed): 24,000 words in 12 chapters. Austen was giving us a much wider world than she had before, her language is more relaxed and at times so fresh the descriptions; the plot is unfolding slowly, with its direction not yet clear. Basically Marshall then described several of the continuations. Anna Lefroy’s, written between 1845-60, was first published in 1983 by Marshall; she had been working as a rare book cataloguer, and came across this working draft. It was Anna who had the cancelled drafts of Persuasion (she reminded us). She carefully developed the Parker family in a direction consonant with what Austen wrote. There is a real aptness and similarity of tone. The POV is Charlotte, Charlotte and Sidney are to marry; Sidney is clearly going to help his brother-in-law; Marshall was reminded by one of the new names of Hasting’s man of business, Woodman; the ambiguous character of Tracy is developed – a business world is being put before us.
A brief list: 1932 Alicia Cobbet (?), whose text is not faithful to the original personalities at all, with its melodramatic plot about kidnapping, smuggling and the like. A best known continuation: by Austen and “another lady (Marie Dobbs): Dobbs extended the story in a direction Dobbs thought Austen’s novel might have moved; Charlotte, for example, thwarts Edward’s seduction of Clara; Sidney proposes to Charlotte. 1981 Rebecca Baldwin who hopes the reader may take what she has written as homage to Austen; Julia Barret 2002 whose book Ms Marshall said is said to be terrible; Regina Hall 2008, where a mere description showed ludicrousness; Helen Marshall 2012 wrote a bizarre short story. Carrie Brebis, The Suspicion at Sanditon; or, The Disappearance of Lady Denham 2015, a “Mr and Mrs Darcy mystery,” was characterized by Marshall as “a well-written mystery.” Then there are several self-published texts: Juliet Shapiro 2003; Helen Barker The Brother 2002; David Williams’s Set in a Silver Sea 2016 with Miss Lamb as the main character. This is not the complete list she went over; I am missing titles; it was clear that Ms Marshall enjoyed some of these.
She then told us about Chris Brindle’s play, the film, the documentary; he owns the Lefroy ms, recruited Amanda Jacobs who sang his music very well (especially the beautiful duet, Blue Briny Sea; you can listen here to his most recent music for Jane Austen). Her last text was the coming (she hoped) new Sanditon commercial film (2018-19), with Charlotte Rampling as Lady Denham, Holliday Grainger as Charlotte, Toby Jones as Tim Parker, John O’Hanlon ,the diretor, Simone Read scripting. After she finished, I asked if she agreed with me that Chris Brindle’s was a fine continuation and Chris was right to take the two texts (Austen’s and Lefoy’s) in a direction exposing corrupt financial dealings, and she said yes. I regretted more than ever not having gone to listen to Sara Dustin on Friday on “Sanditon at 200: Intimations of a Consumer Society. I had chosen the paper on Jane Austen’s letters, wrongly as it turned out, for it was just a basic description and introduction to the problematic nature of the letters, which I’ve known about since blogging about this letters here for over 3 years. Peter Sabor said he had had the privilege of reading the script for the coming film, and it seemed a work of reminiscence. Many questions were asked about the textual sequels. This was perhaps the best session overall that I attended.
E.M.
PS: The latest information on Andrew Davies’s coming ITV and Masterpiece 8 episode serial drama of Sanditon: confirmation and some commentary:
https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/itv-and-red-planet-pictures-announce-cast-filming-commences-jane-austens-sanditon
Cast: Kris Marshall as Tom Parker, Kate Ashfield as Mary Parker, Theo James as Sidney Parker, Rose Williams as Charlotte Heywood, Lily Sacofsky as Clara Bremerton, Anne Reid as Lady Denham, Alexandra Roach as Diana Parker, Jack Fox as Sir Edward Denham, Charlotte Spencer as Esther Denham, Crystal Clarke as Miss Lambe, Elizabeth Berrington as Mrs Griffiths, Turlough Convery as Arthur Parker, Mark Stanley as “Lord Babbington” Kevin Eldon as Mr Hankins, Adrian Scarborough as “Dr Fuchs”, Leo Suter as Young Stringer and Matthew Needham as “Mr Crowe
In taking Austen, Lefroy and Sanditon beyond the written word and into the recording studio, the stage, the music video, YouTube, DVD, sheet and electronically editable music, the website and live actor/musician performance, I’ve exploited media that would have fascinated the 19th Century writers, but which we take very much for granted. I would imagine that the Andrew Davies / ITV / PBS production will spend at least £1million an episode, say £10 million+ whereas in mounting my production at “The Other Palace” I will probably spend about £10,000, or 0.1% of their spend. But what I am trying to do is to make ‘Sanditon’ a living breathing experience, and I’m saying to people, actors, musicians, theatre owners, interest groups, “come with me on this journey”. There are multiple versions of the script that can be performed by a flexible number of players, the music has been transcribed and exists electronically in a form that can be edited and added to, so if you would like to participate in some way please do get in touch. Austen left ‘Sanditon’ for people to be inspired by in the future, and the more I work with it, the more I realise what you can do with it, and how many new people you can inspire. I am therefore so happy with the work that others have put in to create and contribute to this blog. I would love to take ‘Sanditon’ to North America so if anybody has a suggestion of a way in that might be achieved, please do get in touch.
Chris Brindle
Colchester, England
brindlechris@aol.com
[…] by way of Anna Lefroy’s extension before, and of an available DVD. Well a reminder that the performance is now 11 days away (!) in London, at the “other place,” Victoria, in London, Friday, July 26th, 8 […]