As a successful businessman in Cairo in 1844, Pip looks back on his troubled childhood: his strange encounter in a cemetery with a criminal bound for Australia; his stranger connection with the wildly eccentric Miss Havisham, and her beautiful but haughty adopted child, Estella; his abusive relationship with the much older sister who ‘brought him up by hand’; and his friendship with his sister’s husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. When the lawyer Mr Jaggers arrives to announce that Pip has ‘great expectations’ from a secret benefactor, Pip joyfully moves to London, gains an education and attempts to court the lovely Estella - but she rejects him for a much wealthier man. Even more devastating, the criminal Magiwch returns from Australia and drops the bomb that he is Pip’s secret benefactor (Pip always thought it was Miss Havisham).
After a failed attempt to smuggle him out of England, Magwich is apprehended and dies in prison. Pip decides to join his friends Herbert and Clara in Cairo, where for 10 years he lives a quiet, pleasant life - until he gets the news that Estella’s husband has died. Pip hurries back to England to be reconciled with his childhood friend, the constant love of his life.
Keywords: Dickens, romance, 19th century.Year Printed: 2017
First Produced: Feb 2-10, 2012, Wolf Performance Hall (London Public Library)
Running TIme: 120 minutes
Acts: 2
Male Cast: 15
Female Cast: 8
Total Cast: 23