Theatre

I think if I were going to adapt a novel for the stage I’d choose a short one, with a fairly simple story. 
Theresa Heskins chose a long one, full of sub plots and complications. 

Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’ finest works. 
It tells the story of Pip Pirrin, who, as a child, provides food and a file to a convict he meets in a graveyard.  Although he is to be apprenticed to a blacksmith, Pip makes friends with the rich and eccentric Miss Havisham, who lives in a darkened house and still wears a wedding gown after being jilted as a young girl.  He falls in love with her adopted daughter, Estella, who is cruel to him. 
Meanwhile, an anonymous benefactor gives him money to be a gentleman and go to London …

You see what I mean about complications – and that’s the very simple version and only takes us half way thought the story. 
But Theresa Heskins has done a superb job with it.

Eight Actors - Seventy Parts

She has 8 actors who play around 70 characters, never leaving the stage. Their timing is perfect. 
They also play coat stands, tables and door knockers, among other things.  There are few real props, but the chairs are pretty versatile too, becoming a witness box or a coach. 

 The set, designed by Laura Clarkson, is one of the most creative and effective I’ve seen.    The play uses every inch of the New Vic’s stage to its best advantage.

One of the difficulties of putting a novel on stage is dealing with the pages of description which set the mood in a book.   Here, Heskins takes Dickens’ words and gives them to the actors not involved in a particular scene, in a kind of counterpoint to the action.  

Michael Hugo, as Pip, is the only member of the cast to have just one part.  He holds the whole thing together, and grows easily from a scared child to a lively apprentice, then to a young-man-about-town, and finally to a mature and thoughtful businessman.

Mary Keith’s incidental music adds atmosphere to an original production which is bound to be another success for the New Vic.

Anne Duffell