Middlemarch review – World’s Greatest Novel hurtles from costume drama to jolting marital tragedy

Swan theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon This RSC staging of the sprawling middle England masterpiece has humour, compassion – and even George Eliot herself as a character

Is there a literary achievement greater than George Eliot’s stonking masterpiece? Not according to a Guardian poll, topped by this sprawling, contemplative and profound book about marriage, moral goodness, debt, death, God and everything in between. So how do you adapt its nonpareil greatness for the stage without flattening the moral, philosophical and psychological complexities?

Andrew Davies had a go at it with his watchable enough 1994 television costume drama, retelling Eliot’s story about provincial life, in six parts. A mere six-parts, you might say, for a novel that is about 900 pages.