Published at the height of his powers in 1860, Great Expectations is Charles Dickens’ penultimate novel, and one of his very greatest. Its characters are unforgettable - Miss Havisham, self-imprisoned in her wedding dress and with her wedding feast laid on the table in the forbidding Satis House; her ward Estella, haughty, ice-cold and unreachable, the agent of Miss Havisham’s intended revenge on men and on the world; Magwitch, the desperate and terrifying convict who confronts the young boy Pip in a graveyard on the Kent marshes; and the intimidating, brilliant and untouchable lawyer Jaggers, who seems to act as a puppet master to many of the characters throughout the story. In the first of two episodes, Rupert and Charlie explore Dickens’ childhood, and how the experience of being forced to work in a factory at the age of 12, and seeing his father being imprisoned for debt, affected him for the rest of his life. Charlie talks about the brilliance of so many of the openings of Dickens novels, especially this one, and looks at Dickens' rich and vivid portrayal of London and the Kent marshes. But what are the great expectations that Pip has, and who else has them too? When they aren’t realised, what hard truths does Pip learn? And why did Dickens write several different endings to the novel? Join Rupert and Charlie to find out.
