ANTHONY (DIRECTOR): Er, if, if we'd used er, George Elliot's voice and her comments on the characters which would have been possible, I think it would have been a very different kind of programme. Um, I mean I think the great virtue of this is that it's hopefully very popular and immediate and of course it has all those elements which the 19th century novels, of soap opera, of watching people over a long period, what they do to each other um, how their lives develop. Er, if you'd used her voice it would have made it much more literary and I think, I think she was in a way like a great playwright, I mean she does write wonderful scenes between people where the dialogue and the conflict's extremely dramatic and reveal a great deal about them and I think that's what Andrew plumped for through, something that was very direct and dramatic and you work through the characters and story. You know, you

(p.67, cont)

could do a much more literary adaptation and maybe if you did it on the stage you could have someone er, doing George Elliot's voice which would, qives it a completely different, much more sort of philosophical, literary feeling. Er, this is more direct and popular and modern.

Ref Code: PM-79 Title: Transcript extract from an interview with Middlemarch Director, Anthony Page. p. 66-67. Date: 1993 Format: .png Source: ITM-7963 Transcripts of interviews with members of the cast and crew of Middlemarch (BBC/WGBH, 1994). Edited for the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Educational Developments/BFI (British Film Institute) Education package Screening Middlemarch: 19th Century Novel to 90s Television. Held at BFI, London, UK. http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceArchive/110008677