Michael Henchard - Adaptations

Adaptations

• A 1921 silent film The Mayor of Casterbridge directed by Sidney Morgan
• In 1951 the novel was adapted as an opera by the British composer Peter Tranchell.
• A 1978 television film by Dennis Potter for the BBC starring Alan Bates as Henchard, Anna Massey as Lucetta, and Anne Stallybrass as Susan. The 1978 version was broadcast in the U.S. by PBS as part of Masterpiece Theatre.
• A version of the story was also filmed in 2000 as The Claim, with the setting changed to a town (called Kingdom Come) in the American West of the 19th Century. The film was directed by Michael Winterbottom from a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce.
• In 2001 (broadcast as a series on ITV 2003) by Georgina Lowe for Sally Head Productions, with Ciarán Hinds as Henchard, Juliet Aubrey as Susan Henchard, Polly Walker as Lucetta, James Purefoy as Farfrae and Jodhi May as Elizabeth Jane. The series was released as a 2-disc DVD in 2004.
• In 2008 Helen Edmundson adapted it into a three-episode radio play for BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial slot.