Olivia Colman will burst back onto screens on Sunday, Mach 26 as she takes on the role of Miss Havisham in Steven Knight's new Dickens adaptation on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Viewers will get to tune in to see the Peaky Blinders creator's take on the classic tale that is Great Expectations.
The new series is expected to be a darker story than is usually pictured and comes only 12 years after the BBC's last adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic novel. The 2023 six-part drama stars Fionn Whitehead as Pip, Shalom Brune-Franklin as Estella, Ashley Thomas as Mr Jaggers and Johnny Harris as Magwitch. Meanwhile, Welsh actor Trystan Gravelle takes on the role of Compeyson.
A coming-of-age story, Great Expectations follows Pip, an orphan who yearns for a greater lot in life, until a twist of fate and the evil machinations of the mysterious and eccentric Miss Havisham show him a dark world of possibilities. Under the great expectations placed upon him, Pip will have to work out the true cost of this new world and whether it will truly make him the man he wishes to be. A damning critique of the class system, Dickens' novel was published in 1861 after first releasing it in a series of weekly chapters beginning in December 1860.
