This is a review of the 1970 BBC tv adaptation of Daniel Deronda, starring Martha Henry as Gwendolen and John Nolan as Daniel. I literally never thought I would ever be able to watch this adaptation and I've wanted to see it since I read the novel in 2016. This series has not been seen since it originally aired and the only publicly available proof of its existence was a book cover featuring Henry. I knew this adaptation was listed as existing in the BBC vaults but I had come to except that it would never be released.
A few days ago I went onto a Russian streaming website with the intention of partaking in some light piracy of the 2002 BBC adaptation of Daniel Deronda. Turns out this 1970 adaptation was mysteriously uploaded to the website a month ago, I have absolutely no idea how anyone got their hands on it but I was ecstatic and immediately began watching it, what a tiny miracle for me.
I can happily report that this adaptation is quite satisfactory, definitely has many issues and is quite weaker in comparison to the 2002 version but it has lots of strengths. The majority of the strengths lie in the parts of the plot concerned with Gwendolen. I was unsure of Martha Henry's characterisation at the beginning but as she began to reveal more of Gwendolen's contradictions and depths I steadily found her performance to be the best thing about the series. I found Henry's depiction of Gwendolen's all consuming emptiness, that she playfully disguises with a smile and a witty comment, to be very convincing and moving. Gwendolen is the only character that the screenplay really presents as a fully realised person, the others are sort of caricatures of their book counterparts. I will say that I thought Robert Hardy was very good in this as Grandcourt as well but I did have some issues with the characters presentation but very few. I also liked the inclusion of the Herr Klesmer and Miss Arrowpoint subplot.
This adaptation does not keep the un-linear structure of the beginning of the novel, instead choosing to streamline the events into chronological order. I thought this was a bit of a shame but the 2002 version keeps Eliot's framing choice so it was not so bad. This adaptation keeps little bits of dialogue and small events, like the discovery of the drowning man painting, that were admitted in the 2002 adaptation that I greatly appreciated. The only issue I have with the Gwendolen section was the way Gwendolen's diamonds were delivered to her, I thought it was silly and thoroughly less dramatic then the novel.
Now I must say the Deronda section's were not very good, in fact everything about it felt like an after thought. I think Daniel is a very hard character to present on screen if the writing is not there to support the actor. He can very easily come across as an oppressively moral character with little personality. Unfortunately I think John Nolan's Deronda Falls into these trappings. I do not blame him for this, I feel certain that he could have done a great job if the screenplay was more interested in the character. Vanessa Miles as Mirah is also very uninteresting because the script takes no interest in the character. The very important Jewish part of the story feels like the biggest after thought here. It is not explored very thoroughly and is always very surface level, which is basically what I expected. I did think the last episode was quite rushed and would have been improved by an extra 10 minutes but they did the best with the time they had.
Overall if this were the only adaptation available I would still be satisfied. I am very thankful that I was able to see this and I will probably be re-watching it monthly.
