Olivia Colman excels in a ribald and raucous Great Expectations

So here we are, once again, outside the gates of Satis House. Expectations are not so much great as muted. After all, the third major adaptation of Charles Dickens’s bildungsroman in 12 years is less a source of anticipation than a sign of a commissioning department short on ideas.

This latest take on the overly familiar tale comes courtesy of Steven (Peaky Blinders) Knight. It presents us with a Pip who swears, a Miss Havisham who deals opium and a Mrs Gargery who doubles as Uncle Pumblechook’s whip-wielding dominatrix. Admittedly it’s been years since I read Great Expectations, but I think these details may deviate from the original text. More substantial departures from the plot itself emerge later in this darker, grittier six-part reinterpretation.

The violence, debauchery and coarse language serve to court an audience who might have little interest in period dramas. But while it’s easy to grumble about the inviolable integrity of the classics — and that many of the embellishments are gratuitous and overwritten — Knight’s irreverent, punkish approach is at least preferable to a somnambulant rehash.

Besides, Pip (Tom Sweet, later Fionn Whitehead) still has his fateful cemetery encounter with the escaped convict-turned-benefactor Magwitch (Johnny Harris); and he’s still moulded into a gentleman and manipulated into falling for the unattainable Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin). These iconic scenes are tweaked less than others, but they’re shot through with a renewed intensity and an evocative atmosphere.

The main draw, however, is Olivia Colman as the eternal bride, Miss Havisham. The character is easy to turn into a caricature, but Colman avoids overselling the misery and insanity of a woman wearing a decayed wedding dress as she deftly transmits decades worth of fatigue, disappointment and deadened emotion.

Even so, elsewhere there are too many misjudgments and stilted performances to make this Great Expectations feel like anything more than a moderately watchable effort. I guess there’s always next time.

★★★☆☆

On BBC1 and iPlayer in the UK from March 26 at 9pm with new episodes airing weekly and on Hulu in the US