Great Expectations

- Season 1

(2011)

In the 1810s orphan boy Pip Pirrup lives on the Kent marshes with his shrewish sister and her kindly husband,farrier Joe Gargery. On Christmas eve,whilst visiting his parents' grave, he is confronted by an escaped convict who scares him into stealing a file from Joe's forge to cut his fetters though the man is quickly recaptured without incriminating Pip. In the new year Pip is introduced to Miss Havisham in her decaying mansion Satis House. Still wearing the bridal gown in which she was jilted decades earlier,she tells Pip to play cards with her adopted daughter ...

In London, Pip rooms with the unaffected Herbert Pocket, a relative of Miss Havisham, cut off by his family for wanting to marry the poorly situated Clara Barley and whom Pip helps get work. In other respects, as he fritters away the allowance paid him by Jaggers, his guardian, he becomes a snob, uneasy when Joe visits. He is still in love with Estella, as is the egocentric toff Bentley Drummle, but Estella tells Pip she is incapable of love as Miss Havisham taught her to be hard-hearted and Pip is a witness when Estella accuses her adoptive mother of this. Returning ...

Not wanting to accept that Magwitch is his benefactor Pip goes to Satis House where,not only is it confirmed but he is horrified to learn that Estella is marrying Drummle,to destroy him,the continuation of her adopted mother's plan for her to break men's hearts,Pip having been the guinea pig. Back in London his snobbery must be put aside when Herbert tells him that,as a lifer returned illegally to England to see Pip,Magwitch will be hung if caught and plans are made to smuggle him on board a ship. Discovering that Estella's mother is Molly,Jaggers' housekeeper whom he...