Vanity fair

Based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, “Vanity Fair” is a story of two women - humble Amelia Smedley (Frances Grey) and scheming Becky Sharp (Natasha Little), who meet in boarding school and embark on markedly different lives. In an England on the brink of bankruptcy and war, and amid the swirl of London’s posh ballrooms and affairs of love, Thackeray’s characters’ fortunes rise and fall. Adapted by Andrew Davies, the screenplay loses none of Thackeray’s critical observations of the shallow values of his society, reserving the most pointed barbs for the upper crust. Also starring Miriam Margolyes, Tom Ward, Nathaniel Parker, Jeremy Swift, Phillip Glenister.