STEVE NOLAN: Great Expectations of drama finale despite the literary snobs

I see it as a sign of getting a little bit older that I’ve started to really get into things like Downton Abbey in the last year or so.

Gone are the days of hitting the town on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night every weekend.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a total hermit these days - I’m not over the hill just yet, but certainly on Sunday nights I’m more accustomed to tuning in to find out the latest on Lady Mary and cousin Matthew’s ‘will they won’t they’ romance, than hitting a bar or club - sad I know.

The latest costume drama I’ve become hooked to is the Beeb’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations which concludes tonight.

Having studied Dickens’ classic twice (at GCSE and degree level), and it ranking highly on my list of all-time favourite books - I don’t read many books twice, even by force - I tuned in to see the first installment on Monday night.

And I wasn’t disappointed.

From the bleak opening scenes of Magwitch and a young Pip on the muddy moor to the eerie setting of Sartis House - Gillian Anderson, her of X Files fame, is brilliantly odd as the jilted Miss Havisham.

I’ve loved every minute of it and can’t wait for the finale tonight.

But I was slightly infuriated by the reaction of many ‘literature-snobs’ who took to Twitter to bemoan the lack of continuity between the book and the Beeb’s version.

Sure, there were some liberties taken with the production, and many scenes appear to have been scrapped from the plot - the comic scenes at Wemmick’s Woolwich house for example.

Quite understandable really when you consider that the producers are trying to squeeze a 500-odd page novel into three one hour episodes.

And for me, the lead pair playing the young adult Pip and Estella may have been slightly miscast - she doesn’t strike me as the ‘heartbreaker’ that Miss Havisham perhaps intended her to be in this adaptation.

This version is not without fault.

But so what? It makes for cracking television and might even encourage a new generation of people to connect with such classic story-telling as that of Dickens - the adaptation might make them want to read the book, that can’t be a bad thing, can it?

Similarly, I’ve been reading historians condemning hit ITV drama Downton Abbey due to the odd glaring historical inaccuracy. Apparently, the servants downstairs would be a lot more grubby and a lot less inclined to interaction with their wealthier masters upstairs.

But, again, so what?

It would make for pretty boring TV if it was scripted precisely according to history. And, like Great Expectations, if it gets people interested in finding out more about the history of the period then the series and its writers should only be applauded.

Entertainment is entitled to creative licence - if you don’t like it, that’s what the remote is for - turn over and don’t watch it! I for one will be digging out my copy of Great Expectations and reading it for a third time in the New Year regardless of whether the TV version does it justice or not.