Great Expectations writer Steven Knight addresses spanking sex scene

Sara whips a man on BBC Great Expectations

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from BBC’s Great Expectations

The BBC’s dark reimagining of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is continuing to ruffle feathers. Episode two of the six-part drama left audiences surprised after featuring a sex scene between Mr Pumblechook (played by Matt Berry) and Mrs Sara Gargery (Hayley Squires) in which the housewife spanked him. The moment took place while Sara’s husband Joe Gargery (Owen McDonnell) was hard at work at his forge and Mr Pumblechook supposedly helping her with the family accounts.

Afterward, Sara seemed to imply Mr Pumblechook would be paying for her services after he found some extra money in the ledgers.

The moment comes part and parcel of Steven Knight’s gritty adaptation of Great Expectations after episode one opened up with a foul-mouthed Pip Gargery (Tom Sweet) and some violent scenes between Compeyson (Tristan Gravelle) and Magwitch (Johnny Harris) as they tussled on the marshes.

Addressing the creative decision for the S&M scene, Knight told media including Express.co.uk: “What I don’t want to do is get a Dickens and then vandalise it, change it, because I think the point is – as far as I’m concerned – when Dickens was writing, he was not allowed to write about certain things.

“If you read about Victorian London life, there’s a lot of stuff going on. And Dickens knew there was a lot of stuff going on and his readers knew. They knew he couldn’t write about it, not because he wasn’t brave but because you just didn’t do it.

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“So, I think if you take a microscope to the text, it brings out Mr Pumblechook and Mrs Gargery. There are a couple of lines in there where they disappear together and I think that the Victorian readership are a bit more forensic about it than we are.”

Knight continued: “And I think there are many examples in Dickens where he sort of goes off on a tangent.

“I think he’s sort of suggesting stuff – human beings haven’t changed since then to now. Everybody’s doing the stuff they do now then and I just hope if Dickens were around now and had the liberty to go down some of those dark alleys he would.”

He also spoke about recurring theme between Sara brutalising her younger sibling with frequent beatings and threats of violence and her sexual inclinations linked to inflicting pain on others.

The acclaimed writer said: “In the book – Pip, when he’s young he is beaten a lot by her and at that time was considered to be a normal thing.

“Pumblechook I think is a really interesting character, I say, there are lines within the existing novel that suggest maybe there is something there where they disappear together.

“Dickens writes these lines and then they’re not referred to again. So I just mused there was something going on there between those two and it was realised in that way.”

Adding: “So, again it’s not something that I sit down and plan. It’s something that came along.”

Along with the S&M scene, the second instalment also featured Miss Havisham (Olivia Colman) smoking opium as she attempted to escape her present with her teenage ward Estella (Shalom Brune-Franklin) also using drugs.

Although Dickens may not have painted this scene explicitly in the original novel, Victorian London was well-known for its opium dens and losing people to addiction.

Knight said his research for Great Expectations included looking at documentary books of the era to give a social realism to his adaptation not seen before in other retellings of the story.

The writer said Great Expectations resonated with him because much like Pip, Knight too was the son of a blacksmith and farrier – a smith who put shoes on horses – and was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps with the Dickens novel paralleling his own life and working-class roots.

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Knight’s reading of Great Expectations is very much a class mobility tale with the writer exploring whether someone can really ascend the ladder and escape their humble beginnings.

Sadly, Knight said his version was far from a happy ending as was evidenced in the first scene when Pip tried to take his own life.

This take on Great Expectations counters Dickens’ more hopeful outlook for Pip, who still has great ambitions by the ned of the novel despite all he’s been through.

Fans will have to keep watching to see how Pip gets to this desperate point as he’s put through the rigours of London City life by the morally shady Jaggers (Ashley Thomas).

Great Expectations airs on BBC One on Sundays at 9pm

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