Viewers expecting Steven Knight\u2019s new Dickens adaptation, which is airing on BBC One, to pick up where it left off from episode 1, with Pip meeting Miss Havisham<\/a> for the first time, got what they were expecting \u2013 but they also found that the opening scene was intercut with another, more unexpected storyline.<\/p>\n As Pip is given his first lesson by Havisham, we also see his sister Sara closing her bedroom window shutters and taking off her wedding ring, before approaching Matt Berry\u2019s Mr Pumblechook<\/a> with an iron rod.<\/p>\n Sara then proceeds to beat Pumblechook across his back as he appears shirtless and on all fours on her bed, evidently getting sexual pleasure from the encounter.<\/p>\n Fans of Dickens\u2019s original text may find themselves perplexed by the surprising sequence, but for Knight, it ties directly into inferences made in the novel.<\/p>\n At a recent Q&A, Knight explained: \u201cWhat I don\u2019t want to do is say, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to get a Dickens and then vandalise it and change it\u2019. Because I think that point is, as far as I\u2019m concerned, that when Dickens was writing he was not allowed to write about certain things.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAnd if you read about what Victorian London was like, there\u2019s a lot of stuff going on and Dickens knew there was a lot of stuff going on and his readers knew. But they all knew he couldn\u2019t write about that sort of stuff, not because he wasn\u2019t brave, but because you just didn\u2019t do that sort of thing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think if you take a microscope to the text of Dickens \u2013 for example, Pumblechook and Mrs Gargery, there are a couple of lines in there where they disappear together. And I think that a Victorian readership were a bit more forensic about what was going on.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s many examples in Dickens where he sort of goes off on a tangent that we think, \u2018He\u2019s sort of suggesting stuff\u2019. Human beings haven\u2019t changed since then to now. Everybody was doing the stuff they do now then.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what I hope I\u2019m trying to do is, if Dickens were around now and had the liberty to go down some of those dark alleys, this is what it would have been.\u201d<\/p> When asked whether he was looking to include more dark, perverse and twisted elements in his script, Knight said: \u201cIt\u2019s not even dark, perverse and twisted, it\u2019s funny. That\u2019s the point, it\u2019s not trying to be like, \u2018Let\u2019s make it really dark\u2019. Dickens is dark enough.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, it\u2019s just a question of saying the things that couldn\u2019t be said at the time which Dickens was saying in code. And so it\u2019s not an attempt to deliberately be dark, it\u2019s an attempt to say, \u2018This is what the world was like when Dickens was writing, but he couldn\u2019t quite say that at the time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Addressing the role of Matt Berry\u2019s Pumblechook specifically, Knight said: \u201cPumblechook, I think, is a really interesting character. And as I say, there are lines within the existing book that suggest that maybe there is something there, where they disappear together.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I just mused that maybe there was something going on between those two and it was realised in that way. It\u2019s not something that I sit down and plan, it\u2019s something that came along and I thought, \u2018Well that would be interesting\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Knight recently spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com<\/a> about Great Expectations<\/a> for a Big RT Interview<\/a>, where he also discussed the development of the Peaky Blinders movie<\/a>, SAS Rogue Heroes<\/a> season 2, Taboo<\/a> season 2 and more.<\/p> ![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/03\/424182-b02187a.jpg?quality=90&resize=619%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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