Corsets vs Facts: How ITV’s Vanity Fair gave us truth over accuracy

William Makepeace Thackeray’s 1848 novel Vanity Fair has inspired numerous adaptations across television, film, and even radio. The story first appeared on screen in 1911 as a silent film, charting the dramatic rise and fall of its central character, Becky Sharp, as she ascends and ultimately descends the social ladder. Since then, Vanity Fair has been repeatedly reimagined for new audiences, each version reflecting both Thackeray’s biting social satire and the cultural priorities of the era in which it was produced.

However, the most recent adaptation came in 2018, when ITV decided to turn a 900-page book into a short, seven-episode mini-series. At first, this was a concern for me as such a short adaptation, with no real hint of a second season, seemed insufficient to fully capture the essence of its source material. But in some ways, this adaptability is perhaps unsurprising.

Thackeray’s novel is less concerned with documenting Regency England with historical precision than with exposing the hypocrisies, ambitions, and moral contradictions that underpin its society. As a result, adaptations of Vanity Fair often face a familiar dilemma within period drama, on whether to prioritise strict historical accuracy or to reshape the past in ways that resonate more clearly with contemporary viewers. The ITV adaptation enters this long lineage of reinterpretation, raising fresh questions about what audiences truly expect from period drama and whether authenticity is measured in factual detail or in the emotional and social truths a story conveys.

The show peels back the polished veneer of Regency and Victorian society

As a first-time consumer of any Vanity Fair adaptation, the ITV miniseries served as my introduction to both the novel’s rich legacy and its most captivating creation: Becky Sharp. From the outset, Becky emerges as a figure who resists easy categorisation, ambitious, manipulative, and acutely aware of the social constraints placed upon her. It is through her sharp wit and relentless self-fashioning that the series invites viewers not only into the world of Regency England but into the moral ambiguities that define it.

Among the many British period dramas that have captured contemporary audiences, Vanity Fair stands out as a uniquely sharp and socially incisive series. Far from offering a purely romanticised vision of the 19th century, the show peels back the polished veneer of Regency and Victorian society to expose the ambition, insecurity, and moral ambiguity that lie beneath. However, not all adaptations of Vanity Fair have offered this interpretation, particularly in their treatment of the character arcs of the two central female figures.

In ITV’s re-telling of the Vanity Fair story, they centre the narrative on the friendship that soon sours between the two main female characters: Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley. A choice that had seldom been highlighted in previous adaptations. There is also a more nuanced take on the personalities of the characters, deviating from the binary of bad and good.

ITV’s adaptation prioritises psychological and thematic accuracy

Rouben Mamoulian’s 1935 film adaptation, starring Miriam Hopkins, notably softens Becky’s moral ruthlessness, reframing her social ambition as a product of romantic disappointment rather than calculated self-interest. Similarly, Mira Nair’s 2004 film, starring Reese Witherspoon, presents a more emotionally sympathetic Becky, foregrounding her maternal instincts and romantic attachments in ways that temper Thackeray’s satire. In both cases, Amelia is correspondingly diminished, rendered almost entirely passive and defined by her suffering rather than by any internal development.

ITV’s 2018 miniseries, by contrast, resists this simplification. Olivia Cooke’s Becky remains knowingly performative and socially transgressive, fully aware of the constraints placed upon her as a woman and willing to exploit them. At the same time, Claudia Jessie’s Amelia is afforded moments of emotional agency that complicate her apparent submissiveness without wholly abandoning the historical reality of her limited power. These choices foreground a central tension in adapting Vanity Fair, as Regency women were undeniably constrained by rigid social codes, yet portraying them with absolute historical fidelity risks reducing them to narrative symbols rather than fully realised characters. By selectively modernising behaviour and emotional expression, ITV’s adaptation prioritises psychological and thematic accuracy over strict behavioural realism, suggesting that fidelity to Thackeray’s social critique may matter more than unwavering adherence to historical convention.

Becky’s ascent reflects the impossible expectations placed on women of limited means. Underneath the manipulation and schemes to climb up the social ladder, we can see that she understands the rules of high society better than those born into it. Yet, she is constantly reminded that wit and determination cannot erase her lack of pedigree. The show uses Becky’s audacity to highlight an uncomfortable truth: success in this world depends less on merit and more on the talent to deceive.