Great Expectations – The Musical

Great Expectations is a classic Charles Dickens tale set in Victorian times.

It tells the story of Pip, a poor orphaned lad who lives with his sister and her husband Joe, the blacksmith. The story opens one early morning when Pip is a young teenager. He is in the church cemetery praying for his dead family and is accosted and threatened by an escaped convict. Pip brings the convict food but the convict is captured.

A short while later, Pip is sent for by Miss Havisham, a strange  and very rich woman who wants him to come and play with her adopted daughter Estella. What Pip doesn’t know is that Miss Havisham is training Estella to deceive and break men’s hearts, and that he is only being used to help Estella practice her technique. But as fate would have it, Pip falls in love with the selfish and haughty Estella, but is saddened because he knows he will never be able to marry her because he is poor and will never be a proper gentleman.

A few years later while Pip is training to become a blacksmith, he is visited by a London lawyer with the news that a mysterious benefactor wants him to give up his apprenticeship and become a proper gentleman with all expenses paid. The one condition of his good fortune is that he should never attempt to discover who his mysterious benefactor is. This is a stroke of luck that Pip can hardly believe. Therefore Pip leaves his sister and his friend Joe and goes off to London where he is transformed with the help of special tutors from a poor backward blacksmith’s apprentice into a proper Victorian gentleman. 

Pip naturally thinks that it is Miss Havisham who is his mysterious benefactor, especially when some years later, he receives a message from Miss Havisham that Estella, who has grown into a beautiful young lady, has asked to meet him in London.

When Pip sees Estella again, he realizes that he is still in love with her and now because he is a proper gentleman, he now has the chance to marry her. But Pip is heartbroken when Estella reveals to him that she is incapable of feeling love for any man and that furthermore she is engaged to marry a horrible rich man named Bently Drummle. 

Pip’s world is turned upside down when he discovers that his true benefactor is the escaped convict who he did a kindness by bringing food to in the cemetery all those years ago. The convict escaped to New South Wales and became a rich sheep farmer, and decided to repay Pip for his kindness by making him into a gentleman. 

This show is full of romance, revenge, adventure and music and dance that is guaranteed to leave audiences happy and leaving the theatre with the catchy songs ringing in their ears.

This musical version of great expectations has 14 songs, with different scenery for each section which will be presented on back screen projections.

This version is unique in that it tells the story as a musical with period clothes and modern music, yet keeps to the original story line. This is one of the most famous stories of modern times and has been made into a film many times including 1917, 1934,1946, 1974, 1981, 1991, 2012.

THIS IS A MUSICAL WHOSE TIME HAS COME!

Saturday 11th March 2017 - 19:30
Tickets £19.00 / £17.00, restricted view £15.00