"Great Expectations" (BBC1, 2011)

[Norfolk Born]

(Abridged version of a sketch from 'Round The Horne' - or it may have been its predecessor 'Beyond Our Ken')

The scene: Christmas Eve in a dark, cold room

Mother: When's that new fireplace going to arrive?
Father: I told you, this afternoon.
Children (in chorus) We're c-c-c-c-cold!
Mother: Are you SURE you gave them the right address?
Father: Yes, I'm sure
Children: What colour is it?
Father (Increasingly tetchily): I can't remember.
Mother: You ordered us a fireplace and you can't even remember what COLOUR it is?
Children: How much coal will we need to keep warm? Will it be big enough to cook the turkey on? What.....
(There is a knock at the door, to which they all turn as one)

Announcer: You have been listening to a scene from the new BBC adaptation of 'Grate Expectations'.

[amateur51]

I think he said his name was 'Arthur Gielgud'. I heard both the Guinness and Gielgud stories from the waspish gossip Sheridan Morley and consequently disbelieved them both (Guinness and Gielgud both being dead by that time)

And Sherry being dead too now

[DracoM]

Edwin Drood is one of the most unrelievedly black and mysteriously ambivalent of all D's novel for my money. BUT I am not surprised he did not finish it. I think there is a major mistake in how the characters are juxta-posed and what he sets up seems impossible to resolve. Mystery it is, and at least at the start, it's a cracker too. Background of a somewhat shabby cathedral choir / city etc. MOST unusual Dickens' s territory.

[Anna]

Edwin Drood is one of the most unrelievedly black and mysteriously ambivalent of all D's novel for my money. BUT I am not surprised he did not finish it. I think there is a major mistake in how the characters are juxta-posed and what he sets up seems impossible to resolve. Mystery it is, and at least at the start, it's a cracker too. Background of a somewhat shabby cathedral choir / city etc. MOST unusual Dickens' s territory.

Well, he didn't finish because he inconveniently died. The shabby Cathedral Choir. That would be Rochester then? Oh, they'll love it on the CE Thread!

[DracoM]

Woops, yes, Anna my own, I KNOW he died in 1870 etc, but actually a number of scholars think he more or less lost interest in it, and that the remaining instalments to be published demonstrated that CD himself knew rather better than we might think as to what lay ahead - or as nearly as Dickens ever did.

One or two American scholars have even posited that the Dickens notes / drafts etc are still extant in some still-to-be-discovered cache. Hmm.

[mercia]

I thought Andrew Davies was the preferred adapter for these major BBC classics.
He did Bleak House (with Gillian Anderson again) didn't he. I wonder who has "done" Edwin Drood.

[Anna]

I thought Andrew Davies was the preferred adapter for these major BBC classics. He did Bleak House (with Gillian Anderson again) didn't he. I wonder who has "done" Edwin Drood.

BBC says Gwyneth Hughes (Five Days, U Be Dead, Miss Austen Regrets and Blood Strangers) Never heard of her, or any of those.

[Mary Chambers]

I have to say that, beautiful as Pip is (apart from the mouth - upper lip too thick for perfection IMV), there are moments when his wide-eyed innocent expression reminds me a little of Dougal in Father Ted.

[Anna]

Well, we have sat through two hours of meandering tripe to finally get to the final episode, and what a heart wrenching, gut churning, full of drama, nail biting hour it was. I cried over Magwich (Jaggers, lend me your silk kerchief)

So, please, BBC, remake the first two episodes and it could be a good serialisation. I would like to see Russell T. Davies or Stephen Moffat to do a Dickens adaptation. Wot Larks that would be!

[DracoM]

A travesty, an abject, expensive piece of BBC treachery. So much critical stuff excised.

In the BOOK, Herbert Pocket was in the escape boat on the Thames, Pip was NOT alone. Magwitch stood trial. Pip went into a feverous decline and Joe nursed him back to health. Biddy? Pumblechook was humiliated at the end by a massive break-in which cleaned him out perpetrated by Orlick - so not a prosperous grocer. . Satis House....erm: 'there was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left'. All that is left is the old garden.
And Pip? Estella to Pip: 'And you live abroad still?" Pip: "Still."
Orlick and his ending? The Lime Pits episode?

Need one go on to list the appalling wrenching, omissions, re-inventions, lies?

The TV ending was pretty well what Dickens wrote - "and I saw no shadow of another parting from her." Whatever Foster said or Lytton lobbied for.



Pah!!

[Mr Pee]

A travesty, an abject, expensive piece of BBC treachery. So much critical stuff excised.

In the BOOK, Herbert Pocket was in the escape boat on the Thames, Pip was NOT alone. Magwitch stood trial. Pip went into a feverous decline and Joe nursed him back to health. Biddy? Pumblechook was humiliated at the end by a massive break-in which cleaned him out perpetrated by Orlick - so not a prosperous grocer. . Satis House....erm: 'there was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left'. All that is left is the old garden.
And Pip? Estella to Pip: 'And you live abroad still?" Pip: "Still."
Orlick and his ending? The Lime Pits episode?

Need one go on to list the appalling wrenching, omissions, re-inventions, lies?

The TV ending was pretty well what Dickens wrote - "and I saw no shadow of another parting from her." Whatever Foster said or Lytton lobbied for.



Pah!!

Haven't been watching Bleak Expectations.

The Top Gear Christmas Special was good though!!

[Nick Armstrong]

Well, we have sat through two hours of meandering tripe to finally get to the final episode, and what a heart wrenching, gut churning, full of drama, nail biting hour it was. I cried over Magwich (Jaggers, lend me your silk kerchief)

So, please, BBC, remake the first two episodes and it could be a good serialisation.

My chief clerk is bringing across a supply of silk kerchiefs, ma'am, together with my invoice

I have to say I see it rather differently, Anna... I thought the first episode much the best, not least because the 10 yo Pip acted the 20 yo one off the screen. But also because the adaptation erred more and more in the 2nd and 3rd parts to over-simplification, as well as drifting from aspects of the plot which are crucial to understanding Pip's history. And at the heart of it, Pip and Estella were miscast, Estella lacking in any kind of sexual charm or magnetism, Pip lacking anything except the facial characteristics for a fashion shoot in Vogue Uomo. I ended up disappointed.

[Norfolk Born]

I thought the 3rd episode something of an improvement, with Miss H's self-immolation thrillingly - and scarily - dramatic. Sadly, an initially satisfyingly dark tone lasted only until somebody - the producer? - lost his nerve and wrapped everything up rather too quickly and neatly. All the weakest acting seemed to come from those playing the main characters, namely Pip, Estella, Miss H and young Pocket. Ray Winstone was a little better, but he was still basically Ray Winstone.

[Anna]

My chief clerk is bringing across a supply of silk kerchiefs, ma'am, together with my invoice

I have to say I see it rather differently, Anna... I thought the first episode much the best, not least because the 10 yo Pip acted the 20 yo one off the screen. But also because the adaptation erred more and more in the 2nd and 3rd parts to over-simplification, as well as drifting from aspects of the plot which are crucial to understanding Pip's history. And at the heart of it, Pip and Estella were miscast, Estella lacking in any kind of sexual charm or magnetism, Pip lacking anything except the facial characteristics for a fashion shoot in Vogue Uomo. I ended up disappointed.

Ha! She said, not knowing how to separate her quotes.

Yes, young Pip was marvellous, but I thought you said the second was brill, and I said Older Pip was a perfumed ponce and Estalla impossibly plain, so now, at long last, you come round to my point of view and are disappointed.........

Excuse me, Wemmick, can we refer to the first Witness Statment whereby said Witness said he was totally satisfied and it could not be bettered and he did not care a jot about misrepresentation? The Court will rise for the evidence to be presented.

Oh, here it is "In general terms I found it a fascinating and utterly gripping version of the story... especially when one was actually watching it, thanks to the wonderful look of the production and camera-work"

I rest my case that said Witness is biased, he is biased, Jaggers, Get us to Chancery, we have a Case!

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought you said the second was brill ...
Oh, here it is "In general terms I found it a fascinating and utterly gripping version of the story... especially when one was actually watching it, thanks to the wonderful look of the production and camera-work"

If her Ladyship would very kindly refer to the beginning of the quoted statement, a mere sentence away from the phrase she has wrenched out of context, she will find the words "I have just finished watching the first of the three parts": as I've just said again, I thought the first was brill

It went off after that, I thought.

I rest my case that said Witness is biased, he is biased, Jaggers, Get us to Chancery, we have a Case!

Should her Ladyship resort to Chancery, she will be instantly subject to a nolle prosequi and may consider herself lucky not to be slapped with a writ ne exeat regno

I did think the Havisham self-immolation was visually stunning, by the way...