Queens of Sunday night... Keeley and Olivia serve up TV treat of the year
SO we have a battle on our hands. And the ratings war between the bonnets of Vanity Fair and the bottoms of Bodyguard looks certain to have us all perched on the edge of our sofas.
After a week’s head start, with two scorching episodes, BBC One’s political thriller finds itself up against ITV’s seven-part period drama, a wonderfully bold adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s literary classic Vanity Fair, starring Olivia Cooke and Tom Bateman.
It comes with a very good pedigree – produced by the same team responsible for Poldark and Victoria.
On paper, of course, writer Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard and Vanity Fair (adapted here by Gwyneth Hughes) are diametrically opposed.
Bodyguard, starring Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes, is visceral, explosive, a nerve-shredding contemporary thriller with brutally modern issues and conflicts at its core.
Also, it hasn’t taken long for the key characters to get their clothes off. Indeed, Madden’s David Budd is already being compared to Aidan Turner’s Poldark.
Vanity Fair, on the other hand, is based on a book from the middle of the 19th century. As we’d expect, it’s pretty big on bonnets and candlelight and horse-drawn carriages.
And of course its characters wear clothing that takes about a week to remove, rendering spontaneous acts of lust a little impractical.
Yet in some ways, it’s almost as modern as the show it’s up against because it identifies themes in Thackeray’s story that resonate strongly today.
A young woman of humble origins, Cooke’s Becky Sharp, the sharp-witted anti-heroine of the tale, is determined to make her way in society, despite odds that are heavily stacked against her.
She’s magnificently manipulative in the way she goes about this. It seems a terrible thing to confess, but Becky is shockingly likeable. And so is this adaptation.
Factor in marvellously colourful performances from costars Martin Clunes, Frances de la Tour and Michael Palin and Vanity Fair adds up to thumpingly good fun.
Bodyguard vs Vanity Fair: whatever the ratings, the real winner here is the viewer.