Great Expectations parts I & II or: Once Upon a time in Gravesend

Far from the humble hovel surrounded by marshes perched precariously on the edge of the known world, Joe’s al fresco forge is now palatial in comparison and ideally located for passing trade in the town centre.

Urban development has taken a foothold in Stephen Knight’s adaptation of Dicken’s novel and the remoteness that once embraced the humble dwellers of the forge, Joe, Pip and Mrs Joe is now awash with background extras wandering aimlessly – much like their modern-day contemporaries in town centres today - past their windows all dressed up and seemingly nowhere to go.

Perhaps they’re wondering if global warming has evaporated the marshes to the point where what was once wading distance, is now touching distance of their noisy neighbours. Or maybe the worry that the industrial revolution taking place just up the road signals the horse shoe and bridle accessories industry is in danger of becoming a niche market.

Whatever the future may hold, the present or the past, depending on how you view prescribed events, cannot alter the fact that Magwitch is possibly the hardest man in Kent (and the BBC at present). Covered in blood, mud, extradition orders and perfect teeth, he skilfully eludes a search party by hiding under the only overturned boat on the marshes. And dare not smile in the process. Pip is selling Chinese Charlie to matelots. Matt Berry aka Mr Pumblechook is earning his stripes under the careful tutelage of Mrs Joe and accompanying horse crop. Mrs Havisham still manages to fit her bridal gown some years after the non-event and although the cobwebs have grown mostly around her crown and general demeanour the night club sized ballroom downstairs is in pristine condition as is every window in the house and all its paintwork. Quite a feat for someone who lives a Gormenghast style existence shut away from the outside world with the exception of the minors she’s carefully grooming; Estelle, Herbert and now Pip whom she gathers to her corrosive frocks like a spider embalming its next meal. All of which begs the question: ‘Havisham, a paedophile? What the Dickens is going on?!?’

So much to pack in and we’ve only just begun!

Pip loses all his puppy fat, complexion and confidence and mutates into a nervy, thin, pale, bone eyed eighteen-year-old forfeiting his virginity to the cause of becoming a gentlemen courtesy of the Havisham Play Book. The lady herself, if indeed that is what she is (beware of red herrings at your peril in this adaptation!) nurses a chip the size and weight of Joe’s anvil on her shoulder which sits masonic like with the woodland motif and shrubbery adorning her crown. Joe, himself, is now working mostly topless and although we can see he’s not carrying a wire I half suspect he’s an undercover cop working vice waiting to bust the village drug- sex cartel being run by the Havisham syndicate with Pip acting as a drug mule.

There’s a lot of O/O/F camera work (that’s a techie term for ‘out of focus’ for those of you wondering W/T/F?) which kind of acts as a metaphor for the piece as a whole. Bokeh, as this technique is called, is everywhere. Apart from one scene in which Estelle is stood in front of a perfectly in focus Chateau Gravesend whilst Pip, in the same scene, is the only object in focus while Kentish countryside and those aimless wandering extras are all O/O/F. It’s in every teacup, coat tail, garden gate and grain of mud. The land itself, you might say, has become bokeh-fied. Maybe Steven Knight thinks Kent looks better o/f/f for it?

Visually, everything looks beautiful but beyond the optics the drugs, sex and fetish pastimes, the Graves-Enders are taking the author’s work to a place even he couldn’t have imagined regardless of the well documented lothario B/T/S (behind the scenes) activities of said scribbler. And instead of tense, interwoven tremors of shock we have fat dollops of schlock served barefaced to the camera (every pun intended where Matt Berry’s arse most definitely isn’t O/O/F)!

Miss Havisham and Estelle sign off part II sucking on their bongs is the seal that anything that can happen probably will and like the title itself expectations shouldn’t be confined to the run of the mill. Or in this case, the run of the forge.

‘You want more!?!’ (O/T) (Work it out for yourself).

Vdc