Jack Maggs

You’re a dead man if they find you.

Step back in time to 19th-century London, where intrigue and mystery mix in the world premiere of Jack Maggs. Peter Carey’s best-selling and Miles Franklin Award-winning “reworking” of Charles Dickens’ canonical novel Great Expectations, Jack Maggs comes alive on stage in a sweeping new adaptation by South Australian playwright Samuel Adamson, renowned for his successes at England’s National Theatre with Southwark Fair and The Light Princess with Tori Amos.

The story follows the enigmatic ex-convict Jack Maggs (Carey’s version of Magwitch) returning to London from Australia and embarking on a relentless quest to find his ‘son’ Henry Phipps, who has mysteriously disappeared. Maggs soon becomes entangled in the web of Phipps’ neighbour, Percy Buckle and his bizarre household, where he makes a deal with young novelist and “mesmerist” Tobias Oates (or is it Charles Dickens himself?) to find Phipps. Oates has other plans though, and in Maggs, might just find the perfect inspiration for his new novel.