About the show

Violence and Victorian gentility meet in one of Charles Dickens' greatest creations. Pip's epic journey from boy to man has, at its centre, his relationships with the terrifying convict Magwitch, the manipulative Miss Havisham and the beautiful but heartless Estella.

Great Expectations tells the story of Pip, a poor orphan who lives with his tyrannical older sister and her kindly husband, Joe. One day, while visiting his parents' graves, young Pip encounters Magwitch, an escaped convict who scares Pip into stealing food for him. Pip is unaware at this point what a profound effect this chance encounter would have on his life, in time to come.

Years later, Pip is sent to visit the grand Satis House, home of Miss Havisham, an eccentric woman who was jilted at the altar years before and who remains in a state of frozen time. There, Pip falls for Estella, Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, who the lonely dowager is training to break men's hearts. Estella believes Pip to be beneath her and rejects his advances.

As Pip grows older, there seems little hope that his dreams of a better life will ever be fulfilled, that is, until he receives news of an anonymous benefactor. With this new opportunity presented to him, Pip travels to London to live and be educated as a gentleman.

Pip's arrogance grows and he comes to believe that he is of noble birth and the money must have been given to him by Miss Havisham. However, he is soon devastated to discover the true identity of his benefactor. It is a discovery which casts his change of fortunes in a dramatically different light…