Great Expectations

Synopsis

The new stage adaptation of Great Expectations, which toured the UK earlier this year is heading to the Vaudeville Theatre, playing from 6 February 2013 (previews from 1 February).

Reprising their roles for the West End include Jack Ellis (Coronation Street, Where the Heart Is, Bad Girls) as Jaggers, Chris Ellison (The Bill) as Magwitch, and Paul Nivison as Adult Pip, with Paula Wilcox (Emmerdale, The Smoking Room, Man About the House) as Miss Havisham.

Great Expectations has been adapted for the stage by Scottish playwright Jo Clifford and is directed and co-designed by Graham McLaren, an associate director for the National Theatre of Scotland.

The story revolves around Pip, whose impoverished childhood takes on a new dimension when he meets the strange Miss Havisham. An unknown benefactor turns Pip into a gentleman but he falls prey to the corruption of money.

Book your tickets now to see Charles Dickens' famous novel brought to life on stage!

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 7 February 2013

Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, apart from being a sharp instruction manual for young Pip on how to be a proper gentleman (and stay true to your roots), is a cavalcade of characters.

So it's a great virtue of Graham McLaren’s production, originally created for the Perth Theatre in 2005, and touring since last September, that so many of them tumble and swagger through Miss Havisham’s cobwebbed dining room like a plague of phantasms or sprites.

It’s as drastic and arresting a way of shaking up the narrative as is David Nicholls’s more linear, but equally radical, approach in the recent Mike Newell movie. Paul Nivison’s adult Pip, creased and grey-haired from experience, watches...

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Latest User Review

Andrea Studebaker - 23 March 2013:

I knew this couldn't possibly be as good as the book (which I coincidentally read two weeks ago), but I never expected it to be this bad. The script was ridiculous. All the subtlety and depth of the main characters was lost. These were more like caricatures from a farce. Great Expectations, the book, is a fine treasure and this overdone script and production trampled it under the huge clopping shoes of the actors. So sad. Such a waste....

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