Anne with an E, Netflix review: ★★★★★

Goodness gracious me, Anne 'with an E' is such an irritating little girl. Much too enthusiastic about everything. Far too enamoured with her own imagination. Endlessly wittering on about bloody nothing. Ah, just shut up Anne!

It is impossible not to think this whilst watching the first episode of Anne with an E on Netflix this May. But, if you can grit your teeth throughout every annoying little witter, you enter a beautiful old-fashioned world where love is the order of the day.

Spirited Anne (spelled with an E) is the 13-year-old heroine of Canadian writer Lucy Maud Montgomery's famous 1908 book, which brought long words, big dreams and plenty of hi-jinks into childhood reading. This month, Netflix has adapted the story of one orphan breathing life into a sleepy Canadian community for an eight-hour series. Anne with an E is as good an adaptation of the novel as you're going to find.

When hard-working brother and sister farmers accidentally adopt a little girl with a large imagination, there's a cultural collision as small-town country values bump into a loud, messy and emotionally incontinent orphan. The farmers try to send her back, but of course they fall in love with her, until they don't. A couple of times.

Anne just doesn't know how to behave. Breaking Bad writer Moira Walley-Beckett does a (very) good job at making Anne deeply out of place and skin-crawlingly irritating (seriously, just shut up Anne!). But Anne's never been loved! She's often faced abuse and neglect and cruelty. She's also so skinny and ugly, with such revolting red hair, that adults will be blurting out insults at her. Considering all that, she's amazing: charming, honest, brave and strong. If only we could all be more like Anne.

Expect to find a charming story of love and friendship. Best of all, Anne does eventually stop waffling, we promise.