Balzac British Style: Avarice, Austerity and the Tight Spaces of Rex Tucker's Eugénie Grandet (BBC 2, 1965-66)

This article explores the adaptation of Balzac’s work for British television by taking the version of Eugénie Grandet directed by Rex Tucker as an illustrative case study. Analysis of this series shows how the claustrophobic aesthetic of the small screen proved itself to be well-suited to Balzac’s artistic interest in the notion of spatial confinement. The article also examines the BBC’s decision to broadcast this series when the figure of the miser already had a peerless exemplar in Dickens’ Scrooge.