News of BBC’s upcoming six-part reimagining of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations has been swirling online for several weeks.
The new show has been exciting Dickens fans for multiple reasons: not only is Olivia Colman playing the barmy Miss Havisham, but the show has been created by Peaky Blinders’ showrunner Steven Knight.
Now the new miniseries has been given a release date: it will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on March 26, filling that covetable Sunday night slot.
Two trailers have been released over the last couple of weeks in anticipation of the new show. In the teaser trailer, the Oscar-winning actress appears aged with wispy white hair, dressed in a stained wedding gown with an ornate headpiece as she portrays the wealthy spinster.
The scene opens with the orphan Pip, played by Fionn Whitehead, meeting Miss Havisham at Satis House for the first time, ready to begin his education to become a gentleman.
After seeing Pip, who wears a period-style white shirt and scarf with an outer coat, she says with an ominous grin: “Handsome boy.”
The six-part series has been created by Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight and is based on Dickens’ tale, which was first released as a series of weekly chapters beginning in 1860, before it was later published as a novel.
It is a coming-of-age story about Pip, an orphan who hopes for a greater lot in life until a twist of fate introduces him to the mysterious and eccentric Miss Havisham and Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin), showing him a dark world of possibilities.
Under the great expectations placed upon him, Pip will have to work out the cost of this new world and whether it will truly make him the man he wishes to be.
Colman and Whitehead will appear alongside a cast including Ashley Thomas, Johnny Harris, Hayley Squires, Owen McDonnell, Trystan Gravelle, Rudi Dharmalingam, Laurie Ogden and Matt Berry.
The series will be executive produced by the team which was behind the BBC’s 2019 adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: Knight, actor Tom Hardy, Sir Ridley Scott, Dean Baker, David W Zucker, Kate Crowe as well as Tommy Bulfin are all involved in the project.
Great Expectations will be produced by FX Productions in association with the BBC, Scott Free and Hardy Son & Baker.
A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations are the first two in a series of adaptations of Dickens’ novels that have been commissioned by the BBC and FX Productions.
