Theatre and Dance Reviews

I took the easier option and watched Parts 1 and 2 on consecutive nights.

I endorse what Peter Aitken says about Part 1 and feel that the Crummles Theatre Company production is one of the funniest sequences ever, yet still filled with pathos as Smike struggles to deliver his lines.

You don't have to have seen Part 1 to enjoy Part 2. The second play opens with a brilliantly performed high speed resume of the first. Then as characters develop the atmosphere becomes darker.

We meet more new characters as the cast take on further parts. Often it is undetectable. Pip Donaghy who plays the sadistic Wackford Squeers, also plays lecherous fop Sir Mulberry Hawk. The two appear in alternate scenes so the actor must change costumes and add facial hair back and forth. Sometimes this is used to more significant effect. Zoe Waites plays two women with designs on Nicholas in Fanny Squeers and Miss Snevellicci, and also the final object of his desires Madeleine Bray. But brilliant costume and wigs mean that you rarely have the impression that cast members have multiple roles.

The cast of Nicholas Nickleby

There are some superb individual performances. David Dawson continues to impress as Smike especially as his health starts to decline. Smike's death defies anyone who has travelled over five hours with him not to be moved to tears. I particularly enjoyed Richard Bremner's portrayal of clerk Newman Noggs. His crunching of his hands causes disgust every time but his slim twisted figure exaggerated by his clothing create a character straight out of a Boz illustration for one of the original novels.

Similarly the unbelievable philanthropic Cheeryble family work because they are Dickensian caricatures designed to prove that money need not be the root of all evil. They are the counterpoint to the scheming Ralph Nickleby.

But this is a Dickensian adaptation unlike any other. Some characters, Kate Nickleby in particular are more rounded here than on the original page because they are given dialogue. Sometimes the coincidences seem too implausible. That though is a Dickensian trait, written before E. M. Forster's later belief that characters in novels should "only connect".

Therefore it is inevitable that Smike should in fact be related to the Nicklebys and that Nicholas should be the first person Browdie meets in London when he steps off  the coach from Yorkshire.

I'm not sure if I would have flagged watching Nickleby in one day. This though is an epic in every way and most certainly I wasn't looking at my watch. In fact, in Part 2 the second interval comes as a disappointment not a relief.

If you like Dickens you'll love this. It's quite a financial commitment if you do it all in one week, but it's worth every penny.