Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
First produced at the Liverpool Playhouse, 1970. Dickens’ classic story of young Pip who, living with poor blacksmith Joe Gargery, is set upon by convict Magwitch in a cemetery whom he helps escape. Pip’s development includes falling for the ice-cool Estella in the neglected household of the elderly Miss Havisham, for whom time has stood still since she was jilted as a young bride. Through the hard-bitten lawyer Jaggers, Pip one day learns that he has been left a large sum of money and has ‘Great Expectations’, but the benefactor remains a mystery.
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Script Excerpt
Pip: Joe, I should like to tell you something.
Joe: Should you, Pip? What is it?
Pip: What I said about Miss Havisham’s, Joe…
Joe: Wonderful, Pip, amazing!
Pip: It ain’t true.
Joe: What are you a-telling of, Pip?
Pip: It’s lies, Joe.
Joe: Not all of it? You don’t mean to say there was no black velvet coach?
Pip: No, Joe.
Joe: But at least there was dogs, Pip. If there weren’t no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?
Pip: No Joe. There was nothing at all of the kind.
Joe: This won’t do at all, Pip old chap.
Pip: It’s terrible, Joe, ain’t it.
Joe: Awful. What possessed you?
Pip: I don’t know what possessed me, Joe. But I wish my boots weren’t so thick, nor my hands so coarse. There was a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham’s who was dreadfully proud and said I was common, and I know I am common, and I wish I wasn’t.
Joe: There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip, namely that lies is lies. That ain’t no way to get out of being common, old chap. You are most uncommon in some things. You’re uncommon small for a start. Likewise you’re an uncommon scholar.