MIDDLEMARCH Swan, Stratford upon Avon

A MIDLANDS MONUMENT Never mind if you haven’t read this greatest of English novels. Or, like me, not re-read for decades: in order to find joyful recognition in this monumental RSC production you need only be human. I had actually forgotten some characters and moments, like poor gambling Fred’s horseflesh deals and shame at scrounging a loan while longing for patient plain Mary, who won’t give him up but needs him to reform. Nor had I quite remembered the wild streak of pre-Victorian melodrama running through the small workaday Midlands town’s travails: Bulstrode and blackmail, the dramatic will-reading. Nor, long ago and younger by far, had I ever really understood what a beautiful pattern of diverse selfishnesses it weaves: from noble impetuosity to status-anxiety, professional blindness, plain vanity and in some players, frankly what we would now call ADHD. But of course at its heart is Nia Towle as the great- hearted ; ill-judging then slowly growing Dorothea , rushing into…