Case Study: The Production of Vanity Fair

Abstract

Our aims in this chapter are twofold: first, to identify the nature of each individual’s responsibilities involved with the making of the BBC’s Vanity Fair, and to consider how his/her work relates to that of colleagues; secondly, to examine, again through interviews with the production team, issues relating to the overall style of the production — the choice of naturalistic style, and consideration of whether a BBC ‘house style’ for TV classic novel serializations has developed. One of the things that particularly interested us was to try to discover whether, if there were such a thing as a BBC ‘house style’ for Classic Serials production, this would run the risk of subsuming the distinctive voices of individual novelists into a continuing monotone of costume dramas.