Edición América

Con motivo de nuestra primera Edición América, recopilamos algunos artículos escritos en inglés por nuestros alumnos, al estilo de las ediciones de periódicos traducidas. Y este mes analizamos una adaptación a serie de televisión de un clásico de la literatura.

TV Review: Great Expectations (2011)

As Christmas approaches,

Auntie Beeb’ has announced that a new adaptation of CharlesDickens’smuchbeloved classic,GreatExpectations,willsoon airon BBCOne and BBC iPlayer in the UK. It will feature Olivia Colman (The Crown) as Miss Havisham and Fionn Whitehead (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) as Pip. Promising as it looks, a previous adaptation from 2011 had set the standards far too high. Our reviewer, Marta García del Coso, has got all the details…

Great Expectations is a novel written by Charles Dickens in the year 1861 and it was last adapted for TV in 2011 by Sarah Phelps. It narrates the story of an orphan that lives with his sister and brother-in-law and how he becomes a gentleman. This miniseries had three episodes in which Pip, the main character, suffered a series of events that caused him to separate from his family and start a new and completely different life.

Regarding the characters, we can find a large variety of them, from a rich old woman to an ex-convict, and that is what makes this story so mesmerizing.

The main character is called Pip, short for Philip Pirrip. He is an orphan given the means to go to the big city and become a gentleman. In this previous adaptation, he was played by Douglas Booth, who also played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet.

Another interesting character is Miss Havisham. She is a rich woman haunted by the ghosts of her past and unable to move on. Gillian Anderson was the actress in charge of bringing her to life. She has also played a part in films like Hannibal, although most viewers will still remember her iconic role as Agent Dana Scully in The X Files .

American Edition

Miss Havisham has an adopted daughter called Estella. She was raised to hate men and is absolutely incapable of loving anybody. In this adaptation, she was portrayed by Vanessa Kirby, who had also appeared in Mission: Impossible – Fallout .

Despite these three characters being the main ones, my absolute favorite was Joe Gargery, Pip’s brother-in-law. I do believe he is the true gentleman in the story. Joe appeared to be a humble blacksmith married to Pip’s eldest sister. The way I see it, Joe is not only a friend to Pip, but a father. Joe is always there to help Pip. Even when Pip turned his back on his family, Joe never stopped caring about him. I believe this to be one of the greatest deeds you can do for someone.

Joe Gargery was magnificently played by Shaun Dooley, who also took part in films like The game or Offender .

The scenes filmed on location did a great job when it came to representing the streets of 19th-century London, turning the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich into Jaggers’ office, just to mention one example. They also paid special attention to the opening of the show, which showed the graveyard, the church and the hulks just as you would have imagined them. To create a mysterious atmosphere they decided to use smoke, which covered the graves and made us unable to see further from Pip’s perspective.

In this adaptation, they also did an incredible job with the clothes. For instance, Miss Havisham’s old wedding gown was just like you would expect it to be, yellowish and increasingly shabby with the years.

In my opinion, this was a great show. It mirrored the essence of the novel. The story is spellbinding. You could sit there for hours and not get bored. And what I loved the most which is typically characteristic of Charles Dickens- was that every event, every character, everything in the story turned out to be related in the end. There were things I would never have guessed in a million years, but I am not letting the cat out of the bag, so you will have to watch it to know what I am talking about.

Marta García del Coso