Great Expectations

Whilst at his parents’ graveside, Pip is accosted by Magwitch, an escaped convict from a prison ship. Terrified, he is forced to help the man to get away. An unexpected invitation to the house of rich, old Miss Havisham forces Pip into the path of her beautiful, cruel ward Estella and their strange, ruthless games. After an anonymous benefactor grants him a small fortune, Pip turns his back on his humble life as a blacksmith’s apprentice.

Leaving his sister, her husband Joe Gargery and the winsome Biddy, Pip moves to London to become a gentleman in the hopes of winning Estella. But he has no idea of the dangers that await him there, or from where his salvation will come, but come it does:

'I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her'.

This new adaptation of Dickens’ classic story – originally done for the RSC – is ideally suited to Next Stage – celebrating it’s 25th Birthday in 2019 – and to the Minack Theatre. The story is told through the chorus of characters who move seamlessly from the fog-drenched marshes, to the streets of Dickensian London; from the depths of Miss Havisham’s shrouded mansion, to the glittering ball rooms of the city, from the terrors of the graveyard to the thrilling climax on the River Thames.