• Synopsis
  • Reviews
  • Credits
  • Synopsis

    The honest, upright and faithful Adam Bede is a humble carpenter who falls in love with the beautiful but shallow Hetty Sorrel.

    Hetty spurns Adam in favour of a wealthy marriage to a nobleman, Lord Arthur. Though deeply hurt, Adam never relinquishes his love and tries to win Hetty back in his own single-minded, diligent fashion. Balancing the romantic drama is the calm, good-hearted presence of Adam’s childhood sweetheart, Dinah Morris who waits patiently for Adam’s love to return.

    In this fine BBC drama, adapted from George Eliot’s classic novel, the evocations of a bygone rural life are charged with passions of seduction and betrayal, as Adam discovers moral growth and redemption.

  • Reviews

    After all the cold scraps of recycled repeats and old movies, ‘Adam Bede’ (BBC1) itself adapted by Maggie Wadey and directed by Giles Foster was one of the few new works of the New Year and it was as good as any adaptation of the classics the BBC has done for a very long time.

    The Mail On Sunday, John Wells

    Giles Foster gave us a fine adaptation of ‘Adam Bede’. The hayfields and horses glistened in careful composition like a Stubbs landscape in this first version of George Eliot’s tragedy… Maggie Wadey’s intelligent adaptation boldly took it’s time evoking the pace of rural eighteenth century life while skimping on the novel’s moral waffle. Rex Maidment’s camera probed the well cast faces of the actors for the story’s emotional resonances. Iain Glen’s forceful Adam had a genuine virile decency.

    Independent On Sunday, John Lair

  • Credits

    Iain Glen
    Adam Bede
    Patsy Kensit
    Hetty Sorrel
    Susannah Harker
    Dinah Morris
    James Wilby
    Arthur Donnithorne
    Julia McKenzie
    Mrs. Poyser
    Robert Stephens
    Reverend Irwine
    Jean Marsh
    Lisbeth Bede
    Freddie Jones
    Old Squire
    Michael Percival
    Court Official
    Edward Jewesbury
    Judge
    Brian Osborne
    Jury Spokesman
    Paul Brooke
    Martin Poyser
    Tacita Haffenden
    Totty Poyser
    Chase Marks
    Tommy Poyser
    William Holmes
    Marty Poyser
    Alan Cox
    Seth Bede
    Michael Robbins
    Thias Bede
    Jonathan Coy
    Pym
    Johnnie Van Derrick
    Alick
    Jennie Heslewood
    Landlady
    Bill Moody
    Landlord
    Patsy Byrne
    Sarah Stone
    James Greene
    Prosecution Council
    George Innes
    John Olding
    John Burgess
    Sheriff
    Director
    Giles Foster
    Writers (original novel)
    George Eliot
    Writers (screenplay)
    Maggie Wadey
    Producer
    Peter Goodchild
    Cinematographer
    Rex Maidment

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