Great Expectations is saved by Olivia Colman and a little humour

Like Steven Knight’s A Christmas Carol, Great Expectations often gets lost in the darkness, but is pulled out by its impressive cast.

By James Hibbs

Published: Thursday, 23 March 2023 at 12:00 am

I’ll be honest – I was apprehensive coming into the BBC’s new adaptation of Great Expectations.

It’s not because I don’t think Steven Knight is up to the task of adapting Dickens’s novel. Far from it – the writer has proven himself time and again, whether it’s with the excellent Peaky Blinders or recent rip-roaring war drama SAS Rogue Heroes.

No, it’s because his last effort to adapt Dickens was utterly, unbearably grim.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many different ways you can look to adapt A Christmas Carol, but Guy Pearce’s Scrooge was so heinous, so revoltingly horrible, that there was no chance of a proper redemption – the whole point of A Christmas Carol. It’s fair to say the drama failed to put me in a yuletide spirit back in 2019.

So going into Great Expectations of course it had crossed my mind. Is Knight going to do it again and lean into the darkest possible corners of Dickens, blocking out any light? Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.

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Young Pip (Tom Sweet) and Mr Pumblechook (Matt Berry) in Great Expectations.
BBC/FX Networks/Miya Mizuno

Let’s do the bad news first. The first episode of this new six-part series is, by any measure, a pretty grim and joyless experience. There’s a whole lot of screaming and anguish and muck and misery.

Obviously, those who have read Dickens’s novel will be aware that it is not the happiest of tales. But Dickens often wrote with a hint of optimism and a lightness of touch, with humour to be found within. There is none whatsoever in this first instalment.

The problem persists throughout the series, with Knight adding a layer of grime and debauchery to the story just as he did with A Christmas Carol. It feels as though an attempt to make these stories more ‘adult’, but they were already adult – the additions of hazy opium trips and BDSM just feel a bit unnecessary.

I am not one of those who believes classics shouldn’t be altered in adaptation – of course they should, otherwise there would be no point in adapting, certainly after so many previous on-screen iterations.

However, there comes a point at which grim-darkness can override any sense of entertainment and make a drama a slog. No matter how dark a subject matter, there is always a place for some humour and light. That’s just realism.

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Miss Havisham (Olivia Colman) Pip (Fionn Whitehead) and Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin) in Great Expectations.
BBC/FX Networks/Pari Dukovic

Thank goodness, therefore, for the excellent cast Knight and his team have assembled. They are the good news, as they all put in phenomenal performances and use the smallest of glances and subtlest of deliveries to inject character and humour to their scenes.

It’s most apparent in the second episode, as the presences of Olivia Colman, Fionn Whitehead and Shalom Brune-Franklin are strongly felt. The younger actors playing Pip and Estella in the first episode are impressive, but once the trio are on-screen together, the scenes between them are funny, well-paced and engaging

Colman in particular is, unsurprisingly, exceptional, adding depth to Miss Havisham’s sorrow while also providing most of the drama’s laughs – all while remaining a menacing presence. The sequences in which she and Estella teach Pip the ways of being a gentleman are an absolute highlight across the run.

Meanwhile, the presence of Matt Berry as Mr Pumblechook is a welcome one – he manages to get a laugh with his inimitable delivery no matter the content, and even with a more earnest character than he usually plays, adds a surprising and welcome note amongst the glum, grumbling tone. Later, Rudi Dharmalingam brings a similarly more upbeat energy to his scenes as Wemmick.

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Matt Berry as Mr Pumblechook in Great Expectations.
FX Networks,Miya Mizuno

Given this, it’s fair to say the series is a mixed bag – it is far more enjoyable, entertaining and fully rounded than 2019’s A Christmas Carol, with glimmers of humour breaking through the tendency for self-seriousness.

One does have to wonder whether it would have been wiser to go for one of Dickens’s less frequently adapted novels – a version of The Pickwick Papers or The Old Curiosity Shop might have allowed Knight to feel less of an urge to lean into the darkness.

One must hope that this is the case when it comes to future adaptations, which have already been touted. He doesn’t need to go full comedy like Armando Iannucci’s excellent film The Personal History of David Copperfield, but some more light and shade would be appreciated.

Nobody wants to see a grim-dark Oliver Twist asking for more heroin. Nobody.