For the past week or so, barely a day has passed without a story in the British press about the forthcoming eight-part television mini-series Sanditon, based on the novel Jane Austen left unfinished at her death.
Just in case anyone has missed the news, however, broadcaster ITV has commissioned a twelve-meter-wide billboard in the southern English coastal town of Bournemouth, which will be painted publicly over five days beginning Sunday, the day the show begins airing in Britain. (U.S. viewers will see the show sometime next year.) The acrylic-and-ink painting by artist David Downes “will recreate an illustrated version of the poster artwork for Sanditon,” according to press accounts of the project.
It’s not clear to me if this means that Downes’ painting will mirror actual publicity for the television show or be designed to look like publicity for the fictional seaside resort where the story takes place. Either seems possible. In any case, the billboard will stay up for three weeks once it’s finished, providing plenty of opportunities for further panting press coverage.
Downes, who has been diagnosed with high-functioning autism and is a vice president of the UK’s National Autistic Society, describes himself as “a landscape painter who amplifies the sense of place and time through the lens of autism.”
Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer, one of the people I profiled in Among the Janeites, argues that many of the characters in Pride and Prejudice can be understood as on the autistic spectrum, but as far as I know she’s never diagnosed any of the people in Sanditon. Still, you never know what we’re going to get in the ITV version: Screenwriter Andrew Davies has said he used up Austen’s material halfway through Episode 1.
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