Radio
The novel was adapted by Graham White in 2012 into a three-part series on BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial. The production was directed by Jessica Dromgoole and featured Alex Tregear as Bathsheba, Shaun Dooley as Gabriel, Toby Jones as Boldwood and Patrick Kennedy as Troy.
Comics
The novel was adapted by Posy Simmonds into Tamara Drewe, weekly comic strip that ran from September 2005 to October 2006 in The Guardian's Review section. The strip, a modern reworking of the novel, was itself adapted into a film, Tamara Drewe (2010), directed by Stephen Frears.
Film
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1915) directed by Laurence Trimble, starring Florence Turner and Henry Edwards. This is a lost film.
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) directed by John Schlesinger, starring Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene, Terence Stamp as Sergeant Troy, Peter Finch as Mr Boldwood, and Alan Bates as Farmer Oak.
- Far from the Madding Crowd (1998) ITV UK television adaption directed by Nicholas Renton, starring Paloma Baeza, Nathaniel Parker, Jonathan Firth and Nigel Terry.
- Tamara Drewe (2010), a British romantic comedy film directed by Stephen Frears and based on the newspaper comic strip of the same name, which was a modern reworking of Far from the Madding Crowd, starring Gemma Arterton and Luke Evans as analogues of Bathsheba and Gabriel.
- Far from the Madding Crowd (2015) directed by Thomas Vinterberg, screenplay by David Nicholls, with Carey Mulligan as Bathsheba Everdene, Matthias Schoenaerts as Farmer Oak, Michael Sheen as Mr Boldwood, Tom Sturridge as Sergeant Troy and Juno Temple as Fanny Robin.[12][13]
Stage productions
In 1879, Hardy adapted the novel under the title “The Mistress of the Farm: A Pastoral Drama”. When J. Comyns Carr suggested something similar, Hardy gave him his version, which he said Carr “modified… in places, to suit modern carpentry &c”.[14] Hardy's experience of adapting a novel for the theatre was soured by controversy – the managers of the St James's Theatre, London, John Hare and William Hunter Kendal, on reading the Comyns Carr/Hardy adaptation, first accepted it and then rejected it; instead staging Arthur Wing Pinero's play The Squire, which appeared to be heavily plagiarised from the earlier script.[15] This enraged Comyns Carr and, to a lesser extent, Hardy. Prompted by Comyns Carr, Hardy wrote indignant letters to The Times and the Daily News.[16] Comyns Carr/Hardy's version was finally staged at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool, where it opened on 27 February 1882 as Far from The Madding Crowd, with Marion Terry as Bathsheba and Charles Kelly as Oak.[17][18] The reviews were mixed, one critic calling their adaptation “a miniature melodrama… well placed in the provinces”, while praising The Squire’s appeal to “spectators of somewhat refined taste”. The production subsequently transferred to the Globe Theatre in London, opening on 29 April 1882, presenting a similar cast, but with Mrs Bernard Beere now playing Bathsheba.[19]
Inspired by these performances, a further, clumsy cut-and-paste version, of the novel was performed in America shortly afterwards, at the Union Square Theatre, New York in April 1882. The play was panned: according to the theatre reviewer for the American journal Spirit of the Times, it was unfair “to Thomas Hardy, to the public, and to Miss Morris, although she got even by spoiling the play after Mr Cazauran had spoiled the novel”. This experience made Hardy wary of theatrical adaptations and the potential risk to his reputation both from authorised adaptations and from unauthorised ones.[20]
In 1909, Harold Evans adapted the novel, with Hardy's input, for The Hardy Players, Hardy's own amateur theatrical society, formed in 1908 to perform a production of The Trumpet-Major. As Harold Evans’ daughter Evelyn wrote: “This pastoral romance presented more difficult problems of staging; sheep had to be sheared on stage in the great barn; the big shearing supper was essential; Boldwood’s Christmas party had to be staged, too, with its tragic climax, the shooting of Troy by the half-crazed Boldwood. Mr T. H. Tilley, a builder by trade, and a most gifted comedian, conquered all these staging difficulties. He constructed a model theatre (now in the possession of Mr Edward Grassby) with designs for each set, so that the Weatherbury (Puddletown) landscape could be faithfully portrayed. A painting of Waterston House formed one backcloth; meadows, fir plantations, house interiors, the others. Mr Tilley’s rich humour in the part of Joseph Poorgrass delighted Hardy and the audience. My father often chuckled over how Joseph, in his cups, declared, ‘I feel too good for England. I ought to have lived in Genesis by right.’” In the 1909 production, one important scene had to be omitted. Much to Hardy’s regret, the opening of Fanny Robin’s coffin by Bathsheba and her reaction to it could not be staged. At that time, having a coffin on the stage was seen as too shocking. “Years later,” wrote Evelyn Evans, “when Hardy attended a performance of Synge’s Riders to the Sea by the Arts League of Service, and watched drowned bodies carried on to the stage, he remarked wryly that his one coffin containing Fanny Robin and her child could hardly have shocked the same audience.” There was also some unexpected comedy gold in the 1909 production. Evelyn Evans describes it thus: “To make this pastoral play true to life, my father engaged a professional sheep-shearer to shear sheep on stage during the important shearing scene. Everything was to be done as Hardy described it: ‘The lopping off the tresses about the ewe’s head, opening up the neck and collar, the running of the shears line after line round her dewlap, thence about her flank and back, and finishing over her tail – the clean, sleek creature arising from its fleece: startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which lay on the floor in one soft cloud.’ The shearer, complaining of thirst, was given unlimited free beer at his task, with the result that above the actors’ voices could be heard a maudlin song, as the shearer sang to the sheep he was fondly kissing and clipping with expertise, becoming, unfortunately, drunker and drunker to father's great consternation.”[21]
The novel was adapted as a ballet in 1996 by David Bintley for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, a musical in 2000 by Gary Schocker, and an opera in 2006 by Andrew Downes.
New stage adaptations were performed in autumn 2008 by the English Touring Theatre (ETT), directed by Kate Saxon,[22] in March 2013 by Myriad Theatre & Film, and in 2019 by the New Hardy Players (re-formed at the request of Norrie Woodhall).[23]
In 2011 Roger Holman wrote a musical adaptation of "Far From the Madding Crowd".[24]
