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I despair for Vanity Fair: why the costume drama deserves your time

Overshadowed by Bodyguard, ITV’s big autumn drama is one of the best adaptations of the Thackeray classic. Here’s why it’s one of 2018’s hidden gems

  • WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

This month’s Sunday night viewing wars have given us a heroic clash of mettle on mettle. While most viewers sided with BBC1’s Bodyguard, I’ve pinned my colours to ITV’s adaptation of Vanity Fair.

Both are masterclasses in sexual politics, but whereas Jed Mercurio’s pairing of a lonely home secretary with her physically and psychologically scarred minder led us up an implausible cul-de-sac, William Thackeray commands the heights of social satire with a story that, to co-opt one of his most famous pronouncements, “gives back to every era the reflection of its own face”.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Q0UBaw

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