Special Nuneaton link to City of Culture

There's something special happening in Coventry next month - when George Eliot's novel Middlemarch is given a dramatic makeover.

As part of the UK City of Culture celebrations, Dash Arts will be presenting The Great Middlemarch Mystery - having been born in Nuneaton the author set her story in nearby Coventry, a place she knew well.

Billed as an 'immersive promenade performance' it runs from April 7-10 in multiple, rarely seen locations throughout Coventry city centre, and tickets are now on sale.

A spokesman for Dash said: "Part-immersive theatre production and part-mystery game, The Great Middlemarch Mystery puts a modern twist on George Eliot's Middlemarch and its story of the hopes, dreams, disappointments, and scandals lived out within a Midlands town, 150 years after it was first published.

"Audiences follow the interwoven lives of the townsfolk of Middlemarch as they meet with triumph and ruin and help them unearth a terrible secret at its heart.

"Who is the stranger with unfinished business in Middlemarch? And what is the meaning of his untimely death?

"Gathering clues as the drama unfolds between four historic venues in central Coventry, audiences then come together to solve the mystery in this interactive adventure."

The Great Middlemarch Mystery is the first part of a season of work by Dash, entitled Albion, which is an exploration of modern Englishness, in all its complexity.

And artistic director and co-founder of Dash, Josephine Burton said: "Coventry was the inspiration for George Eliot’s Middlemarch, and its communities, stories, and buildings are at the very heart of this production.

"There are almost 100 named characters in her original novel and The Great Middlemarch Mystery will invite actors, our community cast of performers, and audiences to step inside and inhabit her world.

"Our production will be at the same time both 19th-century Middlemarch and 1980s Coventry, reinterpreting this classic novel that on so many levels still resonates today’.

The research for the production has been headed by Ruth Livesey, professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature and Thought - and head of the English Department - at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has a life-long passion for Victorian literature and bringing those books – especially Eliot’s works – to new audiences.

The show takes place across four venues, with the audience moving between each of them. Tickets are £12 / £10 concessions from https://coventry2021.co.uk/