David Copperfield

David Copperfield is a posthumous child. He was born in Blunderstone, Suffolk, three months after the death of his father, who also called David Copperfield. On the night of David's birth, his Great-Aunt Betsey Trotwood arrives at the Rookery - the Copperfield family home. David returns home for the holidays and and makes amends with Murdstone, who has fathered a baby boy with Clara.

Romance is in the air as David secretly gets engaged to his employer’s daughter, the beautiful but dizzy Dora Spenlow (Joanna Page) - despite Mr Spenlow’s (James Grout) outrage. Spenlow’s death soon after, however, gives David a chance to marry Dora, and he starts to write his stories and columns for newspapers. But what of the beautiful Agnes Wickfield (Amanda Ryan), his one constant friend?

David is now working in London as a clerk at Spenlow’s and living at Mrs Crupp’s (Dawn French) house. However, her fondness for "peppermint cordial" renders her incapable of fulfilling her promise to Aunt Betsey (Maggie Smith) to treat David as if he were her own son.

A chance meeting with his old schoolfriend, James Steerforth (Oliver Milburn), leads to David being invited to dinner with Steerforth’s mother (Cherie Lunghi). David also discovers from Agnes that her father’s clerk, the lurking and evil Uriah Heep (Nicholas Lyndhurst), is to become a partner in her father’s business - and the stage is set for a bitter battle.

Der junge David Copperfield lernt sehr früh, dass er nicht auf der Sonnenseite des Lebens geboren wurde. Sein grausamer Stiefvater, Mr. Murdstone prügelt ihn erst fast tot, um ihn dann an die Schule Salem House des unbarmherzigen Direktors Creakle zu schicken. Derweil stirbt Davids Mutter bei der Geburt eines weiteren Sohnes. David flüchtet und wird zur Strafe von seinem Stiefvater in dessen Fabrik in London zur Fronarbeit gezwungen.

David entflieht der Fabrik und macht sich zu Fuß auf den weiten Weg nach Canterbury, zu seiner exzentrischen Tante Betsy Trotwod. Sie nimmt den Jungen bei sich auf und nennt ihn fortan Trotwood Copperfield. Alles scheint sich zum Guten zu wenden, aber die Liebe sorgt für weitere, dramatische Verwicklungen…