David’s happy childhood days in the village of Blunderstone with his mother, Clara (Emilia Fox), and at Great Yarmouth with their servant, Peggotty (Pauline Quirke) and her family, are brought to an end by the marriage of Clara to high-minded but brutal Edward Murdstone (Trevor Eve). He and his sister, Jane (Zoë Wanamaker), move into the peaceful little house and begin a repressive regime. Peggotty is powerless to protect David and finds herself sidelined. Murdstone’s loathing of the boy brings them to a confrontation that leads to David being sent away to school, where Mr Creakle (Ian McKellen) beats him as a matter of course but where he meets James Steerforth (Harry Lloyd), who becomes his friend and protector. After his mother dies, David is sent to London to work in a blacking factory, lodging with the shabby but genteel Wilkins Micawber (Bob Hoskins) and his adoring but emotional wife (Imelda Staunton). They treat him in a curiously adult way and David feels he has found a refuge from the misery of the factory work. But when the Micawbers leave London heavily in debt, David is left alone and runs away to find his aunt, Betsey Trotwood (Maggie Smith). A fiercely frightening woman, she had walked out on Clara many years before when she gave birth to a baby boy - seemingly never to be seen again. But she takes David in and with her eccentric companion Mr Dick (Ian McNeice) proves loyal and loving. At last David has a home again. He goes to a good school and lodges with the Wickfield family, forming a close friendship with Agnes, (Antonia Corrigan) the little daughter of the house. However within the household lurks Wickfield’s (Oliver Ford Davies) scheming clerk, Uriah Heep (Nicholas Lyndhurst) - whose ambition to succeed in the business means that he sees David as a threat. The years slip past and David moves to London to be set up as a clerk in a Proctor’s office, residing in rooms run by the emotional and drunken Mrs Crupp (Dawn French). He misses Agnes and his childhood home until one day he meets the beautiful young Dora Spenlow (Joanna Page) and falls instantly in love.