22 March 2023 , 12:01
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Olivia Colman has defended a racy new Great Expectations adaptation in which her character Miss Havisham is an opium addict.
Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight has made bold changes to the Charles Dickens classic, including sex scenes and a different ending.
Colman, 49, says she loves Knight’s twists in the new BBC1 adaptation, which also includes her kissing main character Pip.
She said: “Anything in Steven’s hands is heightened – and makes it better.
“It was totally not what I’d imagined. And that’s partly why, when I read everything, I was so drawn to it.”
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On her character kissing Pip, played by 25-year-old Fionn Whitehead, she laughed: “He was terrified! No acting involved for him. I love that she’s mortified when he looks so horrified.”
Olivia Colman plays Miss Havisham in the new adaptation (WARNING: Use of this copyright image is subject to the terms of use of BBC Pictures' Digital Picture Service (BBC Pictures) as set out at www.bbcpictures.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/. In particular, this image may only be published by a registered User of BBC Pictures for editorial use for the purpose of publicising the relevant BBC programme, personnel or activity during the Publicity Period which ends three review weeks following the date of transmission and provided the BBC and the copyright holder in the caption are credited. For any other purpose whatsoever, including advertising and commercial, prior written approval from the copyright holder will be required.)She joked the scenes smoking opium were all real. “That was fun,” she said. “The bit you burn is actually caramel because it bubbles so beautifully.”
Colman said she loved the look of Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who lives with her adopted daughter, Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin).
Colman said: “The costume designer, Verity, said she saw her as less dusty and more rotting from the inside.
“I went ‘f***ing brilliant’, that’s done it for me. There was mould growing up the costume.”
But filming in the summer heat proved tricky.
“It was so much hotter than it looks in a room with a corset and petticoats and a fire,” said Colman. “And a coat and a wig and a bald cap.”
Shalom Brune-Franklin in Great Expectations (BBC/FX Networks/Pari Dukovic)Knight, 63, argued that Dickens was restricted by the conventions of his day into writing subtle hints rather than explicit scenes.
He confessed he changed the ending by suggesting that Pip’s inability to shake his humble roots is not acceptable.
“Dickens was asking the question, ‘Can you get out of your class?’” he said.
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“In the book, the conclusion is that he doesn’t get out and that’s OK. Without giving it away, in the adaptation I’ve done, you can’t get out and it’s not OK.”
He said when it came to adding extra scenes such as a naked bedroom thrashing for Mr Pumblechook (Matt Berry) by Mrs Joe Gargery (Hayley Squires), it was hidden in “code” within the original.
He said: “I think if you take a microscope to the text – for example Pumblechook and Mrs Gargery – there are a couple of lines in there where they disappear together. I think the Victorian readership were a bit more forensic about what was going on than we are.”
Peaky Blinders writer Steven Knight (Graham Young / BirminghamLive)Other changes include Pip being taken off to lose his virginity at 18.
Knight said: “Dickens wasn’t allowed to write about certain things. And if you read about what Victorian London was like, there was a lot of stuff going on.
“If Dickens were around now and had the liberty to go down some of those dark alleys, this is what he would have done.”
He hopes the series will encourage youngsters to read the Dickens classic.
He said: “It would be great. When something’s as good as Dickens, they don’t age really. It’s pretty timeless.”
* Great Expectations is on BBC1, on Sunday at 9pm.