Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). Like Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism, psychological insight, sense of place and detailed depiction of the countryside.
Strangers and Brothers is a series of novels by C. P. Snow, published between 1940 and 1970. They deal with – among other things – questions of political and personal integrity, and the mechanics of exercising power.
Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life is a novel by English author George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. It appeared in eight installments (volumes) in 1871 and 1872. Set in Middlemarch, a fictional English Midlands town, in 1829 to 1832, it follows distinct, intersecting stories with many characters. Issues include the status of women, the nature of marriage, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy, political reform, and education. Despite comic elements, Middlemarch uses realism to encompass historical events: the 1832 Reform Act, early railways, and the accession of King William IV. It looks at medicine of the time and reactionary views in a settled community facing unwelcome change. Eliot began writing the two pieces that formed the novel in 1869–1870 and completed it in 1871. Initial reviews were mixed, but it is now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels.
Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy was an English actor who had a long career in theatre, film and television. He began his career as a classical actor and later earned widespread recognition for roles such as Siegfried Farnon in the BBC television series All Creatures Great and Small, Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter film series and Winston Churchill in several productions, beginning with the Southern Television series Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years. He was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Actor for All Creatures Great and Small in 1980 and Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years in 1982. Aside from acting, Hardy was an acknowledged expert on the medieval English longbow and wrote two books on the subject.
Andrew Wynford Davies is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist, best known for his television adaptations of To Serve Them All My Days, House of Cards, Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, Bleak House, War & Peace, and his original serial A Very Peculiar Practice. He was made a BAFTA Fellow in 2002.
Jonathan Stephen Firth is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in such noted British television productions as Middlemarch, Far from the Madding Crowd, and Victoria & Albert.
Rufus Frederik Sewell is a British actor. In film, he has appeared in Carrington (1995), Hamlet (1996), Dangerous Beauty (1998), Dark City (1998), A Knight's Tale (2001), The Legend of Zorro (2005), The Illusionist (2006), Amazing Grace (2006), The Holiday (2006), The Tourist (2010), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), Judy (2019), The Father (2020), and Old (2021).
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.
Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, is an English actress of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her other film appearances include Emma (1996), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Mona Lisa Smile (2003), Being Julia (2004) and Infamous (2006).
Charles II: The Power and the Passion is a British television film in four episodes, broadcast on BBC One in 2003, and produced by the BBC in association with the A&E Network in the United States, which also released it in North America with heavy edits. It was produced by Kate Harwood, directed by Joe Wright and written by screenwriter Adrian Hodges, whose credits include David Copperfield and The Lost World.
Louis Frank Marks was an English screenwriter and producer, mainly for BBC Television. His career began in the late 1950s and continued into the next century.
Elizabeth Jean Spriggs was an English character actress.
Douglas William Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who has had an extensive career in theatre, as well as television and film where he has appeared in Robin Hood (2010), Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return and Diana (2013), Penny Dreadful (2016), Catastrophe (2018), Joker and Lost in Space (2019), and The Great (2020–2023).
The Trial is a 1993 film made by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) based on Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of Franz Kafka's 1925 novel The Trial.
William James Smith is an English stand-up comedian, screenwriter, novelist, actor and producer.
Juliet Emma Aubrey is a British actress of theatre, film, and television. She won the 1995 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for playing Dorothea in the BBC serial Middlemarch (1994). She is also known for her role as Helen Cutter in the ITV series Primeval (2007–2011). Her film appearances include Still Crazy (1998), The Constant Gardener (2005) and The Infiltrator (2016).
Dorothea, also spelt Dorothee (German), Dorothée (French), and Dorotea, is a female given name from Greek Δωροθέα (Dōrothéa) meaning "god's gift". In English it is more commonly spelt Dorothy.
Daniel Deronda is a British television serial drama adapted by Andrew Davies from the 1876 George Eliot novel of the same name. It was directed by Tom Hooper, produced by Louis Marks, and was first broadcast in three parts on BBC One from 23 November to 7 December 2002. The serial starred Hugh Dancy as Daniel Deronda, Romola Garai as Gwendolen Harleth, Hugh Bonneville as Henleigh Grandcourt, and Jodhi May as Mirah Lapidoth. Co-production funding came from WGBH Boston.
Zen is a British television series produced by Left Bank Pictures for the BBC, co-produced with WGBH Boston for its Masterpiece anthology series, Mediaset and ZDF. It stars Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino and is based on the Aurelio Zen detective novels by Michael Dibdin. The series was filmed on location in Italy, but the dialogue is in English. The series, which comprises three 90-minute films, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sunday evenings from 2 January 2011 on BBC One. The three films were based on the books Vendetta (1990), Cabal (1992) and Ratking (1988). The series was cancelled by BBC One in February 2011; BBC One controller Danny Cohen later said there were already enough male crime-fighters on TV. Left Bank, the show's producer, tried to find other broadcasters to fund another series but were unsuccessful.
Harry Bradbeer is a British director, producer, and writer. He is known for his work on the television series Fleabag and Killing Eve, and the films Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2.
