The BBC has started filming its latest period adaptation - George Eliot's Daniel Deronda - on location in Somerset.

Writer Andrew Davies has already gathered critical acclaim for his television version of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now.

Davies's earlier BBC adaptation of George Eliot's Middlemarch was at the centre of a wave of period dramas.

George Eliot's last novel is bold and experimental for its time

Andrew Davies Writer

The latest production features Iris star Hugh Bonneville as well as Edward Fox and Celia Imrie.

Talks are still ongoing to bring Greta Scacchi and Barbara Hershey into the cast.

Hugh Dancy plays the title role, a man torn between his feelings for the vivacious Gwendolen Harleth (Romola Garai) and a young Jewish woman, Mirah Lapidoth (Jodhi May).

True identity

Gwendolen is forced into an oppressive marriage with Henleigh Grandcourt, played by Bonneville, who wants to shape her into his ideal aristocratic wife.

Uncertain of his parentage, Deronda embarks on a quest to discover his true identity in the three-part BBC One adaptation.

"Daniel Deronda is highly original and modern in its feel," says Davies.

Andrew Davies was behind The Way We Live Now

"George Eliot's last novel is bold and experimental for its time which makes it ripe for adaptation.

"Set in the 1860s, it is a passionate, intense love story which takes both hero and heroine, Daniel Deronda and Gwendolen Harleth, on a journey of eventual self-fulfilment."

BBC controller of drama commissioning Jane Tranter said: "Like his recent adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, its themes are as relevant today as they were in 1876 when the novel was published."

Daniel Deronda will be filmed over the next 11 weeks on location in London, Edinburgh, Somerset, Surrey, and Malta.