Great Expectations

Is there any point in introducing Great Expectations? It is a text so timelessly entrenched within the cultural zeitgeist as to compose a defining part of our humble country’s cultural sun.

The story of orphan boy Pip and his shady, fortuitous rise to gentlemanly prominence is one earmarked on the timeline of the vast majority of the British public, either through schooling or one of the countless multi-media adaptations.

While having appeared on stage before, Graham McLaren’s depiction is the first time this literary behemoth has hit the peerless West End.

On the strength of this performance, it is safe to say that Great Expectations has always belonged there.

Far removed from the misty drudgery of Victorian England so often synonymous with adaptations of Dickens, McLaren has opted for a Baroque gothic aesthetic, the meticulously designed and utterly convincing multi-purpose set feeling like something torn directly from Tim Burton’s latest feature film.

The acting, on the most part, is superb. Jack Ellis and James Vaughan, as Jaggers and Wopsle respectively, hit a ceaselessly entertaining mix of subtle malevolence and outright gleeful campiness.