Two Sundays ago there was a thoroughly modern Fanny Price in an old-fashioned adaptation of Mansfield Park. Last week there was a delightful Catherine Morland in a delightful adaptation of Northanger Abbey. And this coming Sunday (ITV1, 9pm) there’s a rather melancholy Anne Elliot in this somewhat down-beat, but touching adaptation of Persuasion.

Down-beat was the phrase I mentioned last week and I’m sorry to have to repeat it, but that really is the overwhelming impression I was left with after watching it. However, that’s not at all to say that that isn’t exactly the point – because Persuasion is not, for the most part, a happy story. Missed opportunities, unrequited love and broken hearts, it’s got it all.

We start eight years after the story really begins, for that’s when Anne, aged 19, and Captain Frederick Wentworth fell in love, and promised themselves to one another. Their happy lives should have begun there and then – where the heroes of Northanger Abbey find themselves at the end of their novel is where Anne and Frederick should start theirs – but it’s not to be. With Frederick off to war, Anne’s friends and family persuade her to break off the engagement, (hence, in part, the title) and they part ways. The novel begins those eight years later when Captain Wentworth re-enters Anne’s life, with him still apparently hurting from her rejection, and her still regretting it…

This adaptation has two really good lead actors in Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones, who wonderfully convey their characters’ regret and heartbreak, and touching, mature affection for one another. And there are in fact some laughs provided by Anthony Head and Julia Davis – something of a TV Scoop favourite, by the way, who has since expressed her gratitude at becoming pregnant with twins *after* having to squeeze into those awful corsets! It’s not ground-breakingly brilliant by any means, and it’s certainly not exciting, but you are in the hands of some very capable and perhaps even more importantly likable actors. Not a major success, then, but definitely worth a look.

Set The Video – Persuasion, ITV1, Sunday 2nd April, 9pm

[annawaits]