Well on hearing that there was to be yet another version of the Charles Dickens book Great Expectations brought to our screens, I immediately thought, why does the world need this again when there are so many books in the world. However, the production directed by Mike Newell drew me in enough for an enjoyable evening.
This telling of the story of orphan Pip who we first meet as he encounters the terrifying escaped convict Magwitch (Ralph Fiennes)in a graveyard one day, is handled well. Fiennes plays subtly a character away from his usual middle class type.
The young Pip grows up in hardship in a life punctuated by trips to the mansion house as the enforced entertainment of the manipulative Miss Havisham and the adopted daughter Estella he secretly adores. Helena Bonham Carter gives a lighter touch to Miss Havisham than some of the more recent harsher embodiments.
Pip (Jeremy Irvine) is enabled, by a mysterious benefactor, to live a life of luxury in London when he grows up. It’s a world for him surrounded by velvet-wearing sparring glamorous youths.
Again, he encounters and falls for Estella (Holliday Grainger) who has been brought up by Miss Havisham to be cruel to men. His life is then thrown into turmoil by an unexpected visitor. Jeremy Irvine plays a pretty self-absorbed Pip who irritates a little though not necessarily a bad thing. Holliday is suitably beguiling. Newell gives us a very colourful version of this well-known story.
Cherrydial 