A new Screen One production starring lain Glen, Patsy Kensit, Susannah Harker, James Wilby
This first film adaptation of George Eliot's classic novel was written by Maggie Wadey, who wrote the much-praised adaptation of Precious Bane.

Two young men, the carpenter Adam Bede and the squire Arthur Donnithorne, find themselves competing for the love of the beautiful dairymaid Hetty Sorrel. It is a triangle which eventually leads to tragedy for all of them.

When Adam Bede was published in 1859 it was greeted as the work of a major new talent. Charles Dickens was sure the author was a woman. He was right, for George Eliot was the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans, a country girl who told her publisher that Adam Bede would be full of "the breath of cows and the scent of hay". Director Giles Foster was responsible for the award-winning television production of Eliot's Silas Marner.
(Stereo)
(Teletext subtitles: page 888)
Drama: page 8
Films: pages 41-67