JENNIFER  SIMS, director, introduces the play

This well-loved novel has been the subject of many adaptations over the years. David Lean’s famous film of 1946 set the bar very high with its stellar cast and evocative locations.  In this bicentennial year of Dickens there has been a successful  television version and a new film version comes on general release  just one day before our production opens, obviously timed to perfection!  Those who love the novel could have the double pleasure of seeing both the film and the play in one week.  

Neil Bartlett is a theatre artist, published writer and activist who has helped shape new theatre in the UK since the 1980s. He has directed for Complicité on More Bigger Snacks Now, the show that won the company the Perrier Award and first brought them to national attention.  As the Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith (1994-2004) he transformed the previously run-down venue into one of the most respected theatres in London. In recognition of this work he was awarded the OBE in 2000.

Amongst many stage adaptations,  Neil Bartlett’s certainly stands out.  As is to be expected of a playwright and director who is known for his innovative work in theatre, his is not a traditional approach.  Whilst remaining true to the novel in using Dickens’ language, he has created a version for the modern stage.  He  avoids a naturalistic approach, which nowadays is so often the preserve of film-makers with a myriad of real locations at their disposal.    Bartlett uses the novel’s central device - that of Pip as narrator of his own story - and relies on an ensemble  of actors to create Pip’s memories and experiences.  The result is something which is very theatrical in style, and one which makes huge demands on the cast and creative team.

The company has worked tirelessly together, developing a true sense of ensemble. In this production there is no time for any member of the cast to sit in the dressing room waiting for their entrance.  They are all on stage for most of the action, creating different characters, and the many different settings of the novel.   The imaginative stage design and the creativity in the use of costume has been key to making this fast-moving production come to life.  As we move rapidly from the wind-swept marshes of Kent to the streets of London,  via a range of  domestic settings, we aim to inspire the audience’s imagination and convey the essence of Dickens’ story.

BILL  BRAY reminisces

We are just in time to celebrate the 200th anniversary year of Dickens’ birth in our final production of 2012.  I urge you to read this great novel, but a taste of enjoyment to come will be had in this stage adaptation by Neil Bartlett. Dickens wrote directly for the stage and his plays, usually in one act, were sometimes performed, but never matched the popularity, on both sides of the Atlantic, of his dramatic readings from his novels. 

His facility with words led him to a job as a journalist which led on to writing novels, most of which were written in instalments for the popular magazines of the time such as, Household Words and All The Year Round. Stage adaptations of parts of his novels were common at the time of publication which shows how theatrical his novels are seen to be.

Many are set in London but Great Expectations is, for us in Crayford, on familiar territory, because of its settings in places in north west Kent and along the Thames and Medway. 

David Lean’s film, with John Mills and Valerie Hobson, will be familiar to most readers, especially for its frightening opening scene in the swirling mist in the graveyard in the middle of the marshes. The novel has a personal resonance for me because as a teenager soon after World War II, I used to cycle across the Dartford marshes with friends on the winding solitary road to the Long Reach Tavern on the banks of the Thames. It was somewhere at the back of Dartford station that the trail began but has probably changed beyond recognition with the Q E Bridge, motorways and house building. The pub itself was a stopping place for tugs and barges, but when I saw the David Lean film it was always associated for me with the scene where Magwitch is trying to escape police followers. 

The film was brought back to mind when the author of War Horse, Michael Morpurgo, in a recent radio talk, revealed that, aged 19, he was watching Great Expectations with his mother and when Magwitch appeared (played by Finlay Currie) she turned to him and said, "That’s your father."  Something of a shock for Morpurgo who had presumed that his mother’s husband was his father! 

The title, Great Expectations, may be considered ironic because the 'expectations' are not fulfilled, or perhaps fulfilment comes and is then lost.  Do not miss this anniversary adaptation of a great literary work.