Great Expectations (1991 miniseries) Great Expectations (1991 miniseries) Great Expectations is a British television serial based on Charles Dickens' novel of the same title. The six-part serial was first broadcast on the ITV network in 1991 though it was distributed on VHS in the United States in 1989. Jean Simmons, who played the role of the young Estella in the 1946 movie, played Miss Havisham in the 1989 version. Other key roles include John Rhys-Davies as Joe Gargery, Ray McAnally as Jaggers, Anthony Calf as the adult Pip, Kim Thomson as both young and adult Estella, Adam Blackwood as Herbert Pocket, Anthony Hopkins as
Charles Dickens fancy". Dickens's biographer Claire Tomalin regards him as the greatest creator of character in English fiction after Shakespeare. Dickensian characters are amongst the most memorable in English literature, especially so because of their typically whimsical names. The likes of Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit, Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagin, Bill Sikes, Pip, Miss Havisham, Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, David Copperfield, Mr. Micawber, Abel Magwitch, Daniel Quilp, Samuel Pickwick, Wackford Squeers, and Uriah Heep are so well known as to be part and parcel of British culture, and in some cases have passed into ordinary language: a