The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is an eight-hour stage play, presented over two performances, adapted from the
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
novel of the same nameNicholas Nickleby; or, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is a novel by Charles Dickens. Originally published as a serial from 1838 to 1839, it was Dickens' third novel....
by
David EdgarDavid Edgar is a British playwright and author who has had more than sixty of his plays published and performed on stage, radio and television around the world, making him one of the most prolific dramatists of the post-1960s generation in Great Britain.He was resident playwright at the Birmingham...
. Directed by
John CairdJohn Newport Caird is a British stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an Honorary Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and the Principal Guest Director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre,...
and
Trevor NunnSir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...
, it opened on 5 June 1980 at the
Aldwych TheatreThe Aldwych Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Aldwych in the City of Westminster. The theatre was listed Grade II on 20 July 1971. Its seating capacity is 1,200.-Origins:...
in London. The music and lyrics were from Stephen Oliver and the set design was by
John NapierJohn Napier is a set designer for Broadway and London theatrical performances.-Biography:John Napier studied at Hornsey College of Art and the Central School of Arts and Crafts, studying under notable set designer Ralph Koltai....
and Dermot Hayes. It transferred to the Plymouth Theatre on
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, initially opening 4 October 1981 and running until 3 January 1982. Revivals of the original production were produced in 1986 and a truncated version from 2006-2008.
Productions
The original London cast included
Roger ReesRoger Rees is a Welsh actor. He is best known to American audiences for playing the characters Robin Colcord on the American television sitcom show Cheers and Lord John Marbury on the American television drama The West Wing...
as Nicholas,
David ThrelfallDavid Threlfall is an English stage, film and television actor and director best known for playing Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless. He has also directed several episodes of the show.-Early life:...
as Smike,
Ben KingsleySir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as Squeers,
Bob PeckBob Peck was an English stage, television and film actor.-Early life:He went to Leeds Modern School in Lawnswood...
as John Browdie and Sir Mulberry Hawk,
John WoodvineJohn Woodvine is an English stage and screen actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.-Early life:...
as Ralph Nickleby,
Susan LittlerSusan Littler was an English actress who appeared in many television and stage productions in the 1970s and early 1980s, before her career was cut short by her premature death...
as Kate,
Edward PetherbridgeEdward Petherbridge is a British actor. Among his many roles, he portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in several screen adaptations of Dorothy L...
as Newman Noggs,
Timothy SpallTimothy Leonard Spall, OBE is an English character actor and occasional presenter.-Early life:Spall, the third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London. His mother, Sylvia R. , was a hairdresser, and his father, Joseph L. Spall, was a postal worker...
as Young Wackford and Mr. Folair, John McEnery as Mr. Mantalini, William the Waiter and Mr. Snevellicci,
Graham CrowdenClement Graham Crowden was a Scottish actor. He was best known for his many appearances in television comedy dramas and films, often playing eccentric 'offbeat' scientist, teacher and doctor characters.-Early life:...
as Mr. Vincent Crummles and Walter Bray, and
Suzanne BertishSuzanne C. Bertish is an English actress.A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bertish has appeared in many productions with them, including their marathon eight-and-a-half hour version of Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, in which she played three roles...
as Fanny Squeers, Peg Sliderskew and Miss Snevellicci, among many others. All actors apart from Rees played multiple roles. Some parts were recast in November 1980, with
Fulton MackayFulton Mackay OBE was a Scottish actor and playwright, best known for his role as prison officer Mr. Mackay in the 1970s sitcom Porridge.-Early life:...
playing Squeers,
Emily RichardEmily Richard is a British actress and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.One of three sisters, Richard attended drama school in London in 1966 aged 18, but she was asked to leave after a year as she was "too timid". She then sold programmes in theatres in London's West End...
taking the role of Kate Nickleby and
Christopher Benjamin as Crummles. Fulton Mackay and Timothy Spall had left the company by the time the production moved to Broadway and were replaced by
Alun ArmstrongAlun Armstrong is a prolific British character actor. Armstrong grew up in County Durham in North East England. He first became interested in acting through Shakespeare productions at his grammar school. Since his career began in the early 1970s, he has played, in his words, "the full spectrum of...
and
Ian McNeiceIan McNeice is a prolific English screen, stage, and television character actor.-Early life:McNeice was born in Basingstoke in Hampshire. McNeice's acting training started at the Taunton School in Somerset, followed by two years at the Salisbury Playhouse...
respectively. When the Aldwych production closed in the summer of 1981 the set was moved to the Old Vic Theatre and the work videotaped for a four-part mini-series by Channel Four Television and
Mobil Showcase TheatreThe Mobil Showcase Network was the umbrella title for a series of syndicated television specials showcasing cultural dramas and specials sponsored by Mobil...
.
The production was revived for the
Royal Shakespeare TheatreThe Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
, Stratford-upon-Avon, in January 1986. A second Broadway production ran from 24 August 1986 to 12 October 1986 at the
Broadhurst TheatreThe Broadhurst Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 235 West 44th Street in midtown Manhattan.It was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp, a well-known theatre designer who had been working directly with the Shubert brothers; the Broadhurst opened 27 September 1917...
and was nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Revival.
Despite the play's success, its length and the size of the cast required means that it is seldom revived, although in 2006 Edgar prepared a shorter version for a production at the
Chichester FestivalChichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....
, which transferred in December 2007 and January 2008 to the
Gielgud TheatreThe Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...
in the West End. This version has been produced in the US by the California Shakespeare Festival, Playmakers Repertory Theater and a production is planned at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston in October - December 2010. However, in 2007, The Young Shakespeare Players of Madison, Wisconsin, US — a company noted for its uncut productions of Shakespeare's plays — produced a new production of the original, full-length Edgar-RSC "Nicholas Nickleby" (the first full-length production in a generation).
Critical reception
Although audience reception was enthusiastic, critical reception was mixed.
Frank RichFrank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
in
New York Times reported dull passages piling up as "dead weight", while
John SimonJohn Ivan Simon is an American author and literary, theater, and film critic.-Personal life:Simon was born in Subotica, Bačka, County of Bačka, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later, known as Yugoslavia . He is of Hungarian descent...
in the
New York Magazine felt that the work was a "middlebrow enterprise" doing "scant justice" to the novel. In contrast
Mel GussowMelvyn H. Gussow was an American theater critic, movie critic, and author who wrote for The New York Times for 35 years.-Biography:...
, again in
The New York Times, noted that "
Nicholas Nickleby remains true to Dickens – many of the lines are taken directly from the novel, dialogue as well as narration – and to first principles of theater" when describing the RSC's recast production in 1986. Playwright and reviewer Thomas Hischak, writing in retrospect about the 1981–82 New York season, judged the production as the "centerpiece of the season...a theatrical experience of a lifetime" and in London
Bernard LevinHenry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
of
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
found "a ceaselessly entertaining...dramatic triumph" and despaired of the cavils of his fellow critics. He concluded: "…we come out not merely delighted but strengthened, not just entertained but uplifted, not only affected but changed."
Awards and nominations
Awards
- 1980 Laurence Olivier Awards: Play of the year; Director of the year; Designer of the year; Actor of the year in a new play: Roger Rees; Actor of the Year in a Supporting Role: David Threlfall; Actress of the Year in a Supporting Role: Suzanne Bertish.
- 1982 Tony Awards: Best Play; Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play: Roger Rees
- 1982 New York Drama Critics' Circle
The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of 24 drama critics from daily newspapers, magazines and wire services based in the New York City metropolitan area. The organization was founded in 1935 at the Algonquin Hotel by a group that included Brooks Atkinson, Walter Winchell, and Robert Benchley...
Award for Best Play
Nominations
- 1987 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play