Social climber
Vanity Fair TV ITV Scheduled for September It’s been adapted for the screen many times down the years, and it’s easy to see why film-makers so often revisit William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.r For a start, it takes well-aimed satirical swipes at people at all levels of early 19th-century society, and many of his barbs seem as relevant today as when the book was first serialised in 1847/48.
Then there’s the novel’s best-loved character, anti-hero Becky Sharp: clever, calculating and manipulative, yet so full of life one can’t help but forgive her many indiscretions. It’s no coincidence that Thackeray’s book shares its title with the never-ending carnival – representing humanity’s attachment to worldliness – in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
This ITV/Amazon Prime co-production stars Olivia Cooke of Ready Player One as Sharp, on an odyssey set during the Napoleonic Wars, which takes her from poverty, via marriage and Waterloo, to the court of George IV. It also stars Johnny Flynn, Martin Clunes, Frances de la Tour, Tom Bateman and Suranne Jones, with Michael Palin as Thackeray himself.