'Animals Were My Vanity Fair Highlight'

As ITV’s adaptation of the classic novel begins we reveal why Martin Clunes was thrilled to use his carriage-driving skills for the first time in a TV drama

- Alison James

Men Behaving Badly, Doc Martin, William and Mary, Reggie Perrin and fronting an impressive haul of animal and travel documentaries... With the kind of career back catalogue Martin Clunes is able to boast you’d imagine that no TV role would come as a surprise to him. But that’s not the case. He may be bordering on National Treasure status but he’s also refreshingly modest – which is why he never imagined he’d be cast as Sir Pitt Crawley in Vanity Fair, an adaptation of the William Makepeace Thackeray novel, set against a backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, which tells the story of ambitious Becky Sharp.