Review: Daniel Deronda, Upstairs at the Gatehouse

written for Time Out

Even on the page, George Eliot's last novel is notoriously problematic. It runs two plots concurrently, rarely allowing them to entwine, and displays little neatness of narrative as it flashes back and forth through time. All of which comes with a hefty discourse on the Zionist vision in tow.

John Cooper's adaptation is no match for its knotty tangle. In fact, he hits almost every hazard of literary adaptation, pruning the text down to a skeletal synopsis that hops through events as if ticking off a checklist. So concerned is Cooper with minimising length that he strips his project of purpose, leaving himself no time for interrogation and bleaching Eliot's text of politics and psychology. This is show-and-tell stuff, splurging backstory so we see not characters by conglomerations of biographical bullet points.

Without playing Cooper's text for the melodrama it is, director Harry Meacher and his cast can do little to circumvent its problems. Instead, Meacher gives us Cranford-lite. Credit to Lee Ravitz and, as an elegantly boyish Deronda, Mark Jackson for bringing life to the lifeless.

For the most part, though, the cast look bored. Little wonder, really, given a foolhardy venture that combines the authenticity of Madame Tussauds with the electricity of Spark's Notes.