Middlemarch review – World’s Greatest Novel hurtles from deathbed panto to jolting marital tragedy

Swan theatre, Stratford-Upon-AvonThis RSC staging of the sprawling middle England masterpiece has humour, compassion – and even George Eliot herself as a characterIs there a literary achievement greater than George Eliot’s stonking masterpiece? Not according to a Guardian poll, topped by this sprawling, contemplative and profound book about marriage, moral goodness, debt, death, God and everything in between. So how…