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Written by Katharine Wootton
Well, it’s that time of year again when the BBC shake the dust off their classics library to find the next adaptation for their festive schedule and make that perennially difficult decision: will it be Austen or Dickens? This year, with Charles Dickens’ bicentenary year rather conveniently round the corner, Great Expectations, his novel of rags to riches, leviathan criminals and mad women in mansions, became the chosen tale to occupy our post-turkey TV. But with decade’s worth of previous adaptations, including that still definitive David Lean version starring John Mills, and a new film with Helena Bonham-Carter set for the big screen next year, has this Christmas production of one of our nation’s best-known novels really got anything of worth to offer?
It all really depends on whether you want this to be an adaptation or a visual representation of the book. Certainly, Dickens’ prose provides ample ground for a director to transfer his vision directly onto the screen with his notoriously epic descriptions of Victorian life and society from the bleak marshes of Pip’s childhood to the grandiose filth and corruption of London where he learns to become a gentleman. Yet, with so many cinematic predecessors of this piece, it might seem obvious that Great Expectations needs to be ‘raised up’ from conventionality and familiarity to create something new and original.
For me, I thought this adaptation achieved a great balance between adherence to the novel and playful adaptation, without falling into any of the unnecessary goring and sexing-up that the BBC have frequently been accused of in recent times. It managed to portray the typical period atmosphere without romanticising it, eclipsing the quaint and twee of previous adaptations with a generous splattering of mud, grime and the reality of poverty. The highlight of this production, though, has to be Miss Havisham, innovatively realised by X-Files actress Gillian Anderson. As a perversely child-like version of Wilkie Collins’ Woman in White direly in need of some blusher and lip salve, this Miss Havisham had a truly chilling immateriality, like the fineness of a spider’s web weaving her trap of destruction silently and stealthily.
Aside from Miss Havisham, however, this adaptation did have some terrible casting issues, in particular with the mature Pip, played by Douglas Booth, whose Justin Bieber-esque features and sullen pouting would have been more suited to a L’Oreal advert than to poor old, plain-looking Pip. The evident goal of packing in as many famous, beautiful people as possible was, at times, very jarring and detracted in many ways from the larger-than-life characters of Dickens’ original novel. In this sense, the production’s writer, Sarah Phelps’ experience of writing primarily for soaps and most notably Eastenders, became very obvious. Certainly, this focus on crowd-pleasing drama for a mass audience is sure to incite a barrage of winging from those who feel the absolute injustice done to Dickens by not sticking to the novel line by line.
But as far as adaptations go, which are sure never to really match the genius of writers such as Dickens, I think this one did a very good job in bringing enjoyable entertainment to all, which, at the end of the day, was the original aim of Charles Dickens himself.
Trailer: BBC
Pip can pout but he can't act
I found the older pip to be a bit off-putting but I put it down to a desire for stark contrast between the grimy imperfect poor pip and the clean symmetrical older wealthy pip which is a little bit ironic really considering he never really is as such.
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