Over the next few weekends you can catch my production of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations in the beautiful outdoor setting of the Geffrye Museum's front lawn, next to Hoxton Station - and it's completely FREE!!! No need to book, just show up!
Times and dates https://www.geffrye-
Here's a little more about how and why.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR LAUREN WOOD TALKS TO PHIL WILLMOTT ABOUT BRINGING GREAT EXPECTATIONS TO THE STAGE.
LW: First of all why Great Expectations?
PW: I often take the opportunity of these free productions to introduce audiences to great literature they may not have heard of before, but to launch this new venue I wanted a title people may already be aware of, but might not know in depth. I also wanted a piece that would work with the aesthetic of our beautiful location. Great Expectations seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
LW: I think it’s a book we all think we know, but few of us have actually read.
PW: Yes, until now I’d include myself in that. I’ve seen David Lean’s definitive film and several TV dramatisations over the years and thought I knew it but the moment you open the book you discover a wealth of riches that seldom make it to the screen. I wanted to do a new adaptation that would bring to the fore elements that previous dramatisations have omitted.
LW: Can you give me some examples?
PW: Well, there’s a powerful symmetry to the way the book is constructed, many characters are mirrored by another character that reflect their darker or lighter side, characters that are often omitted from adaptations. So our hero Pip has a parallel in another blacksmith apprentice, Orlick, the hard hearted Estella has an opposite in the warm hearted country girl, Biddy, there are two father figures for Pip, the benign Joe Gargery and the fearsome convict Magwitch, and two friends the amiable Herbert Pocket and the despicable Bentley Drummle. I also wanted the audience to encounter Dickens’ authorial voice, by including narration, again something missing from many adaptations.
LW: Authorial voice?
PW: Yes, he has such a delicious turn of phrase that you simply can’t dramatise but which adds such an enjoyable element to reading the book. I’ll give you an example. Dickens tell us –
“Mr. Jaggers never laughed; but in poising himself, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused his boots to creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way”
What a wonderful character sketch. I wanted the actors to share those gems with us alongside, and integral to, the way they played each role.
LW: Were there parts of the novel you wanted to include but couldn’t in a two hour adaptation?
PW: Oh, of course. I recommend everyone pick it up sometime and enjoy spending time with Mr Wemmick in Putney, meeting Compyson, even the chapters where Dickens really does spiral off at a tangent to describe a very minor character’s attempts to become an actor and play Hamlet.
LW: It’s a long book, how did you initially decide what to dramatise and what to leave out?
PW: I had had help from an unexpected guide. I was surprised to discover that W.S Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame wrote the first stage version. Tracking it down I was very inspired by the decisions he had taken resulting in a fast moving, satisfying script. Despite this he also made some strange choices like, believe it or not, the omission of Miss Havisham. So I was able to take his structure as my starting point and reinserted the missing story elements and narration which I wanted to include until the play took on a form all of its own independent of Gilbert’s.
LW: Why a “Steam Punk” version? Can you explain what the term means to you and why our version embraces it.
PW: It’s a fantasy version of Victoriana, which marries their pioneering scientific aspirations with their steam powered technology. It’s a bit of fun really which allows us to imagine what a steam powered modern world might look like as conceived by inventors of the past. But it does reflect the energy of aspirational young men of the type Pip hopes to become so it’s a good match for our story. It’s also a reflection of the way this beautiful 18th century garden sits incongruously in a modern metropolis and I like that it gives us a little bit of edge that stops us looking like top-hats-on-the-lawn-heritage-
LW: I was really pleased that you kept the elegant period language.
PW: Yes, I briefly considered giving it a more modern urban feel as we’re in the heart of multi-cultural Hoxton but I’ve never believed in dumbing things down. People aren’t stupid, they don’t need the actors to rap, for instance, to help them appreciate a beautiful turn of phrase from another era. However I'm aware that our audience may not necessarily know what, say, a blacksmith is, so I’ve tried to build in brief explanations where necessary.
LW: Did casting influence the final draft?
PW: Oh definitely, when I was lucky enough to assemble this charismatic, fearless cast I was very excited by their response to the text and characters. Their enthusiasms were a further guide to the story elements which might have the maximum audience appeal. There will never be a better performance of Magwitch than the one my late Granddad used to give though (with apologies to our wonderful Magwitch, Matthew Wade) I used to love it, as a child, when he scared me by reading out the first scene in the grave yard.
LW: Do you think this nineteenth century story has anything to say to people today?
PW: At its heart it’s about who and what we choose to value in life. That’s always going to touch people whether they’re starting out on life’s journey with their own great expectations, or reviewing what they’ve learnt along the way.
As you’ll be aware the #metoo movement has empowered anyone who has been sexually abused to name their abuser and as a consequence, rightly or wrongly, careers have been destroyed even by the whiff of rumour.