Middlemarch (1994 TV serial)
Encyclopedia
George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...

's novel Middlemarch
Middlemarch
Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Anne Evans, later Marian Evans. It is her seventh novel, begun in 1869 and then put aside during the final illness of Thornton Lewes, the son of her companion George Henry Lewes...

(1871) has been adapted for television twice. The most recent version in 1994 was directed by Anthony Page
Anthony Page
Anthony Page is a British stage- and film director.-Filmography:*Male of the Species 3-episode TV special that featured Sir Laurence Olivier, Paul Scofield, Sean Connery and Michael Caine. The Scofield episode, Emlyn, won an Emmy Award...

 from a screenplay by Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...

. It starred Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey is a British actress, best known for her role as Helen Cutter on Primeval .-Career:Aubrey attended to King's College London, where she studied Classics and Archaeology...

, Rufus Sewell
Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...

, Douglas Hodge
Douglas Hodge
Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...

 and Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...

.

Plot summary

In this version of George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...

's novel, Dorothea Brooke (Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Aubrey is a British actress, best known for her role as Helen Cutter on Primeval .-Career:Aubrey attended to King's College London, where she studied Classics and Archaeology...

) attempts to satisfy her underdeveloped intellect through marriage to the Reverend Edward Casaubon (Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide
Patrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...

), a man twice her age. The marriage proves unsatisfying and ends with Casaubon's unexpected death. Dorothea eventually meets Will Ladislaw (Rufus Sewell
Rufus Sewell
Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...

), an event which leads to further complications.

For a full length summary see: Middlemarch plot summary.

Cast

  • Juliet Aubrey
    Juliet Aubrey
    Juliet Aubrey is a British actress, best known for her role as Helen Cutter on Primeval .-Career:Aubrey attended to King's College London, where she studied Classics and Archaeology...

     as Dorothea Brooke
  • Patrick Malahide
    Patrick Malahide
    Patrick Malahide is a British actor, who has played many major film and television roles.-Personal life:Malahide, real name Patrick Gerald Duggan, was born in Reading, Berkshire, the son of Irish immigrants, a cook mother and a school secretary father...

     as Rev. Edward Casaubon
  • Rufus Sewell
    Rufus Sewell
    Rufus Frederik Sewell is an English actor. In film, he has appeared in The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight's Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he starred in the 2010 mini-series The Pillars of the Earth...

     as Will Ladislaw
  • Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge
    Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...

     as Dr Tertius Lydgate
  • Robert Hardy
    Robert Hardy
    Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy, CBE, FSA is an English actor with a long career in the theatre, film and television. He is also an acknowledged expert on the longbow.-Early life:...

     as Arthur Brooke
  • Caroline Harker
    Caroline Harker
    Caroline Harker is an English stage and television actress, the sister of actress Susannah Harker, and the daughter of actors Polly Adams and Richard Owens...

     as Celia Brooke
  • Julian Wadham
    Julian Wadham
    -Career:He has appeared on television as both Charles II and George V...

     as Sir James Chettam
  • Elizabeth Spriggs
    Elizabeth Spriggs
    -Early life and career:Born in Buxton, Derbyshire as Elizabeth Jean Williams, Spriggs had an unhappy childhood and grew up entirely without affection, particularly from her distant, domineering father, a master builder and farmer. She studied at the Royal College of Music and taught speech and...

     as Mrs Cadwallader
  • Jonathan Firth
    Jonathan Firth
    Jonathan Firth is a British actor best known for his roles in such noted British television productions as Middlemarch, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Victoria & Albert.-Early life:Jonathan Firth was born in Essex, England...

     as Fred Vincy
  • Trevyn McDowell
    Trevyn McDowell
    South African born Trevyn McDowell is a former actress and property developer, who has starred in films, television programmes, theatre and radio, predominantly in her adopted homeland of England....

     as Rosamund Vincy
  • Rachel Power as Mary Garth
  • Peter Jeffrey
    Peter Jeffrey
    Peter Jeffrey was a British actor with many roles in television and film.Jeffrey was born in Bristol, the son of Florence Alice and Arthur Winfred Gilbert Jeffrey. He was educated at Harrow School and Pembroke College, Cambridge but had no formal training as an actor...

     as Bulstrode

Awards

  • British Academy Television Awards
    British Academy Television Awards
    The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

     - Best Actress (Juliet Aubrey), Best Make Up, Best Original Television Music
  • Broadcasting Press Guild Awards - Best Actress (Juliet Aubrey)
  • Writers' Guild of Great Britain - Best Dramatised Serial
  • Television and Radio Industries Club Awards
    Television and Radio Industries Club
    The Television and Radio Industries Club is a British institution chartered in 1931 to "promote goodwill in the television and radio industries"...

     - BBC Programme of the Year

Reactions

In a 28 March 1994 review for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Elizabeth Kolbert argued that the mini-series was a hit in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 as it, "mesmerized millions of viewers here, setting off a mini-craze for Victorian fiction. In its wake there were Middlemarch lectures, Middlemarch comics, even a wave of Middlemarch debates. Authors and columnists argued in the London papers over whether Dorothea would, in fact, live happily ever after, whether Casaubon, if left alone, would have finished his great work and finally whether Will Ladislaw entered his marriage bed a virgin." In an 11 April 1994 review in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

magazine, John Elson also noted this fact, further stating that the series, "was a recent critical and popular success in Britain, leading to lectures and even debates on the novel. As a result of the show, a Penguin paperback of the novel topped best-seller lists for five weeks, and is still doing well. The town of Stamford
Stamford, Lincolnshire
Stamford is a town and civil parish within the South Kesteven district of the county of Lincolnshire, England. It is approximately to the north of London, on the east side of the A1 road to York and Edinburgh and on the River Welland...

, Lincolnshire, where exteriors were filmed, is preparing for a summertime influx of tourists."

External links

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