The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp: ‘A razor-sharp retelling of Vanity Fair’ Louise O’Neill. Sarra Manning

and film critics alike. ‘I’m Sir Pitt Crawley, delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Sharp. May I welcome you to Queen’s Crawley, and I hope that your stay here will be a long and happy one.’

       Chapter 11

      Sir Pitt Crawley, knighted by the Queen for his ground-breaking contribution to British film and theatre, had woken up one morning, taken stock of his life and decided that it was shallow and empty.

      He was in LA at the time and had been woken up by the sound of his girlfriend (the second Lady Crawley turned a blind and grateful eye to Pitt’s peccadillos) on the phone to her therapist. Or he might have been pulled out of sleep by the sound of his gardening crew trimming the hedges that had been trimmed only the day before. Or awoken by his personal trainer calling him on his cellphone because Sir Pitt was currently meant to be doing lunges, squats, burpees and other undignified exercises in his basement gym.

      Later he would spend two hours in make-up before emoting in front of a green screen so CGI effects could be added in later. And later still, he was due to have dinner and drinks with a producer who he hated and the producer’s wife, who he’d slept with and who now also hated him.

      It was all bullshit, Pitt thought. He thought it again. Then he said the words out loud: ‘It’s all bullshit!’ He scrambled out of bed, naked as the day he was born, flung open the windows so he could stand out on the balcony that overlooked the Olympic-sized swimming pool and shout, ‘IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!’ to the heavens and the bemusement of his gardening crew. And it was at that moment that he had an epiphany, and a few hours after that he was at LAX waiting to fly back to England to find his true, authentic self.

      WHAT A PITT-Y!

       Legendary luvvie Sir Pitt Crawley retires from acting to become a blacksmith

      The papers had been full of incredulous headlines, passing it off as pretentious nonsense, but Pitt had retired to the crumbling estate that had been in his family for generations (the original Pitt Crawley made his fortune in the brewing of beer for none other than Queen Elizabeth I) to strip away the trappings of fame and adulation and get back to nature.

      And yes, he had the old forge on his land restored and got the only blacksmith in the county to give him lessons. It transpired that blacksmithing was very strenuous work and Pitt was knocking on for sixty-five (but a very distinguished sixty-five), so when the only horse he ever shod promptly went lame, he gave up his Lawrentian dreams of hewing metal, if not his dreams of a more authentic life.