Great Expectations (NHB Modern Plays)

by Charles Dickens

Overview

A beautifully simple adaptation of one of Dickens's best-loved novels, bringing it thrillingly to life for the stage.

When the orphan Pip meets the convict Magwitch in a graveyard and is forced to help him escape, his life takes a series of unexpected turns. Invited to the house of the mysterious Miss Havisham, he falls in love with her adopted daughter, the beautiful but cold-hearted Estella. Then the generosity of an unknown benefactor sends him to London to become a gentleman. But the truth behind his change of fortune, once revealed, is not what Pip expects...

Eminently actable and stageable, this version is also ideal for schools and amateur theatre companies.

This book contains introductions by Simon Callow, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley (great-great-great granddaughter of Charles Dickens) and Clifford herself.

'What is so admirable... is that it decisively shrugs off the many screen adaptations to make something that is pure theatre' - The Times

'A striking piece of theatre... potently evocative' - Telegraph

'Breathtaking... one feels transported back to the Victorian era' - The Stage

'Arresting... the adaptation is a model of its kind' - Whatsonstage.com

'An incredibly cohesive and careful adaptation' - Exeunt Magazine

'Clifford's script is a miracle of intelligent compression that wraps itself elegantly round every essential element in the story' - Guardian

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780012162
Publisher:	Hern, Nick Books
Publication date:	05/31/2016
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
Lexile:	1200L (what's this?)
File size:	617 KB

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812. He studied at Wellington House Academy and worked as a law clerk, court stenographer and shorthand reporter, which led to his first collection of pieces, Sketches by Boz (1836). His major works include The Pickwick Papers (1836), Oliver Twist (1837–9), Nicholas Nickleby (1838–9), A Christmas Carol (1843), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–4), David Copperfield (1849–50), Bleak House (1852–3), Hard Times (1854), Little Dorrit (1855–7), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860–1), Our Mutual Friend (1864–5) and the unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870), as well as other novels, books and short stories. None of his major works has ever gone out of print. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836 and had ten children with her. He died in June 1870 from a stroke and, contrary to his wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, was buried in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington