Vanity Fair review – this adaptation fizzes with all the
energy of its social-climbing heroine
4 / 5 stars 4 out of 5 stars.
Yes, it’s yet another version of Thackeray’s novel, and it
has its sights set on a modern audience, but Olivia Cooke is an ideal Becky
Sharp – and the sumptuous sets are worth tuning in for all on their own
Emine Saner
@eminesaner
Sun 2 Sep 2018 22.05 BST
‘So that was school
and this is the world,” says Becky Sharp, on her way to London with the “too
good to be true” Amelia Sedley, who has taken pity on Sharp and invited her to
stay for the week. After that, Miss Sharp will take up her new job as a
governess in “darkest Hampshire” – a terrible fate. “I cannot bear to be a
governess,” she says, dramatically. “I was not put on this Earth to be a poor
and friendless spinster.” She has a few days to try to get out of it.
“How far can she get in a week?” says Amelia’s mother
(Claire Skinner), peering over her glasses at her husband (Simon Russell
Beale). But this is Becky Sharp we’re talking about, so don’t underestimate
her. Miss Pinkerton (a wonderfully austere Suranne Jones), headmistress of her
Academy for Young Ladies, where the orphaned Becky grew up, did. “You see how a
Christian may seek to do good, girls?” she says to the room of graduating
ladies in marshmallow-coloured empire-line dresses about the ungrateful Sharp.
“Only to find she has nursed a viper in her bosom.”
Does the world need another adaptation of Vanity Fair? On
the strength of this start to ITV’s new series, the answer would have to be
yes. It feels as energetic and sparkly as a social climber’s zeal. Michael
Palin plays the author William Makepeace Thackeray, introducing his story about
“a world where everyone is striving for what is not worth having”, while the
opening track playing behind him is a version of All Along the Watchtower.
“There must be some kind of way out of here” might serve as Becky’s words to
live by if she didn’t have a pretty good ideal already: “I want to make sure
tomorrow is better than today,” the lowly daughter of an artist and an opera
girl says to Amelia in their coach as they travel through London.
In this first episode, this will mostly be achieved by
trying to seduce Amelia’s brother, the ghastly Jos, who has returned from
India, where he is a rich civil servant (his title: Collector of Boggley
Wollah). This “lardy loafer” is brilliantly odious – vain and full of tall
tales of his heroics. Despite being terrified of young ladies, as his sister
tells it, he has rather fallen for Miss Sharp. “She’s a nice, gay, merry young
creature,” he says, waddling along, all pompous and porcine, in peach silk
trousers. His attempts to propose are routinely thwarted, twice by the arrival
of tiffin (“Ooh, tiffin!”) and, most amusingly, by his terrible behaviour at a
night out at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, where he gets drunk on a bowl of
rack punch. “Bloody fool,” says the saintly Captain Dobbin – all early-years
Princess Di blond bashfulness – escorting a nauseous Jos back to his lodgings.
Hungover and remorseful, Jos doesn’t come round the next day
to propose, which means time has run out for Becky, who has to leave for her
new job. “Oh, that was a long week,” says Mrs Sedley, pleased to see the back
of her. At the gloomy Hampshire mansion, Becky is unimpressed by her new
employer, the coarse – and, worse, tight-fisted – Sir Pitt Crawley (Martin
Clunes). But things are looking up – a handsome young soldier has just arrived
on horseback and Becky already has his attention.
This seven-part series has been made with Amazon money, and
it looks and feels wildly expensive – CGI London, including the great
hedonistic spectacle of the Vauxhall party, is a treat, and it’s almost worth
tuning in for the set designers’ selection of sumptuous wallpaper alone. The
cast is fantastic, especially Olivia Cooke, who makes an ideal Becky Sharp. Her
knowing looks to camera are spare enough to be conspiratorial without being
annoying.
Gwyneth Hughes’s adaptation is close to the novel, but has
its sights set on a modern audience. The Sedleys’ servant, Sam, who is black,
has a reasonably fleshed-out character, at least by (admittedly low) costume
drama standards; he is visibly appalled by the racist Mr Sedley – Becky may be
low-born, but at least, he says, she is a “white face … Better than sending him
back to India into the arms of some dusky maharani, better than a dozen
mahogany grandchildren”. And it may just be me, but Amelia’s fiance, George
Osborne, seems to have far more in common with his modern namesake – haughty,
snobbish – than I remember from the book. As for Becky, if you’re part of the
generation growing up with endless self-promotion and #livingmybestlife tags on
social media, her quest for influence and riches will make so much sense as to
be unremarkable. Whatever she’s after may not be worth having, but it is worth
watching.
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