This "modern" Vanity Fair is actually not half bad

When trying to analyse why it has taken me so long to watch the most recent TV adaptation (on ITV) of Vanity Fair, I've had to face up to something I've never really admitted to myself before. It wasn't the adaptation's reputation of being very hey wow and attuned to the times that put me off, or at least not solely. If I'm honest with myself, I'm just not that fond of the novel.

As a villain-lover, I'm of course duty bound to root for Becky Sharp, and I do - though to be accurate, she is more of an anti-heroine. I particularly appreciate that Thackeray allows her to be such a bad mother. This is huge in a Victorian novel: in Dickens, even his "dark" women (with the honourable exception of Rosa Dartle) are overflowing with maternal sentiments towards some girl or other. Not Becky, who doesn't see the point of her own offspring, unlike the fond father Rawley (another nice touch). I also remember enjoying Thackeray's mildly ironic prose style when I read the novel ages ago. But apart from that, I didn't care for either the story or for most of the characters. Though Becky has some successes with her scheming, the novel never quite becomes the "bad girl goes from rags to riches" tale that at least I'd been hoping for. There are a couple of frustrating near-misses in Becky's career, and even at the height of her success she and her husband are still getting by on "nothing a year". Elsewhere, the downwards trajectory of the Sedleys is pretty depressing. As for the characters, many of them are created to be unpleasant, and even those who aren't can get on one's nerves, especially the blinkered Amelia. I did not look forward to spending seven whole episodes in the company of this sometimes downright grotesque bunch.

I started the ITV series (adapted by Gwyneth Hughes) pretty sceptically, and was at first extra sensitive to anything that might signal a typical late 2010 consciousness. That Becky threw out both her own Dr Johnson dictionary and Amelia's I considered overkill. There was a scene where the Sedleys were being racially insensitive in front of their black manservant Sam which felt forced, and Amelia and George got away with a remarkable amount of smooching for a courting Regency couple. Nevertheless, I had to admit that the story covered in the first episode of how Becky tried and failed to win Amelia's brother Jos and ended up in Queen's Crawley was effectively told.

As the series progressed, it became even clearer that the few "modern" touches - the pop songs that bookended the episodes worked more or less well, but I actually thought the signature song "All along the Watch Tower" was a good fit and very Becky-ish - were superficial adornments. At its heart, the series is a solid, straightforward adaptation of the novel. What's more, it is played more straight than the Andrew Davies adaptation from the Nineties, which tended to revel in the characters' grotesqueries. Here, even the likes of Sir Pitt Crawley and his heiress sister are more toned down. It helps that the series matches the stellar cast of its predecessor with a strong line-up of its own. The Davies adaptation may have had David Bradley as Sir Pitt, Miriam Margolyes as his sister and Anton Lesser as his son and heir, but the Hughes adaptation has Martin Clunes, Frances de la Tour and the cute, skinny one from Horrible Histories (oh, Mathew Baynton - thank you, IMDB) in the same parts (in the latter case it seems as if two members of the Crawley family have been merged into one). In fact, much to my surprise, I found myself enjoying the Hughes adaptation more than what Davies offered me - and usually I swear by Davies.

It's true, I preferred Natasha Little's Becky to Olivia Cooke's. Little had style and a charm that reminded me of Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet. I could see how people were taken in, and how she could get away with playing the lady. Cooke's Becky has great enthusiasm and a hunger for what life has to offer, but it is always apparent that she's a common little piece. This is a perfectly valid interpretation of the character, though - her admirers (mostly men) don't tend to be that concerned with whether she's ladylike or not. Also, Claudia Jessie in the new version is the perfect Amelia, and though it's hard to match up to the great Philip Glenister, Johnny Flynn is Dobbin exactly as you imagine him.

I liked the more sober tone of the Hughes adaptation, and though there is some padding - Waterloo is made such a meal of one would have thought it was War and Peace - the episodes were not hard to get through. There were nice little moments where characters Thackeray himself seems to have despised were allowed some dignity. In one scene, the autocratic Miss Crawley is terrified because she realises that she will die unmourned. In another, Becky's dim husband Rawdon is made ill at ease by her banter - "maybe I'm a fool, but you shouldn't say so". An effort is made to explain why Amelia pines for her hopeless husband even after he's dead - she has loved him all her life, and never imagined living without him. It's still irritating, though.

The impression I got from the ITV adaptation was that Hughes truly cares for the source material - a great deal more than I do, in fact. She isn't using a Victorian novel as a way to parade her own enlightened opinions, which is a great mercy.

By the way, can anyone explain the tasty Steyne trend? Isn't the Marquess of Steyne supposed to be physically repulsive (which leads one to assume that Becky's reluctance to sleep with him isn't motivated by moral reasons)? Unless I remember incorrectly, the actor who played Steyne in the Davies adaptation gamely sported large, false teeth in order to uglify himself. In the newest adaptation, however, Steyne's played by Anthony Head - sans dentures - who though plainly a great deal older than Becky is a bit of a silver fox. I find it remarkable that the role of Steyne of all people has now twice been taken by hot actors - Gabriel Byrne played him in the film with Reese Witherspoon, which was such a whitewash of Becky's character the whole point of the story was somehow lost. Byrne did a good job of playing the "ugly on the inside" card, but all the same - neither with Byrne nor with Head you feel that Becky is in quite such a painful dilemma as in the book. In this instance, however, I won't complain too much about unfaithfulness to the source material. It has its compensations.