RSC adaptation finds emotional depth in Middlemarch’s marital struggles
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s two-part staging of George Eliot’s *Middlemarch* brings the novel’s provincial marriages, money troubles and social ambitions to the stage, with humour and compassion. The production initially favours pace and plot over the book’s psychological depth, but finds greater emotional force in the strained marriage between Dorothea and the older scholar Casaubon.
Nina Raine’s adaptation runs for almost six hours, including intervals, and retains many of Eliot’s lines while turning the omniscient narrator into Eliot herself, played by Amanda Root. The review praises the design and Ian Drysdale’s Casaubon, while noting that some characters feel thin and that comic scenes can verge on pantomime.
In short
- The RSC stages *Middlemarch* in a nearly six-hour adaptation.
- The production’s emotional centre is Dorothea’s difficult marriage to Casaubon.
- George Eliot appears as a character to help tell the story.
Explained simply
George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a 19th-century novel set in a fictional English town, where personal relationships are shaped by money, status and social expectations. Its many characters include Dorothea Brooke, a young woman who hopes to lead a purposeful life, and Edward Casaubon, an older scholar she marries.
The novel follows several marriages and ambitions, showing how people’s ideals can meet the limits of everyday life. Eliot’s narrator offers insight into the characters’ thoughts and choices, making their inner lives a central part of the story.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “Middlemarch review – World’s Greatest Novel hurtles from costume drama to jolting marital tragedy”.