Adapted from Charles Dickens by David Edgar
Directed by Jonathan Church and Philip Franks
A Mirvish Presentation
of the Chichester Festival Theatre Production
at the Princess of Wales Theatre
February 23-April 20, 2008

    On rare occasions we may thank our lucky stars for theatre debt! In 2006, Jonathan Church, Artistic Director of the Chichester Festival Theatre, found himself in financial and turned nostalgically to a massive production that had become a legend after its debut by the RSC over two decades ago, and one that he hoped he could re-incarnate with modifications. Fortunately, he had the services of the original adapter/playwright, David Edgar, as well as the directorial collaboration of actor turned director, Philip Franks, who really did much more than collaborate, in fact. Church also had the talent of a company of twenty-seven performers who were called upon to play what seems like over a hundred roles from various social strata and geographical milieus. The revived Nicholas Nickleby, at least two hours shorter than its predecessor, is becoming its own legend. After sitting through its entirety (six and a half hours) in one day and evening, I came away feeling mightily exhilarated rather than exhausted, and wishing, if you could believe it, for more. This production is wonderful theatre—of a rare kind—and you are not going to get anything finer than it in many seasons of theatergoing in Toronto. It’s the sort of stuff that the Stratford or Shaw Festival should be—but is not—doing. Unless you are an ultra-nationalist cretin who believes that Dickens (like Shakespeare and Shaw) is a threat to our indigenous modes of theatre, you should be rushing down to the Princess of Wales to see it so that you can boast of having experienced a miracle of ensemble storytelling.

   This production revels in the theatrical flair of Charles Dickens, and does so with bold generosity. The ensemble uses bold strokes for major and minor characters, plays comedy off tragedy and vice-versa, negotiates its way through thick melodramatic incidents, tugs on an audience’s heartstrings with impunity, and drives nobly towards a benevolent ending. This is almost all-out Dickens, which is to say that the production is all heart, as well as being supremely intelligent. It cannot offer Dickens’ grand literary architecture in the 800-page novel, of course, but it suggests the sprawl and the clever symbolism of Dickens’ imagination. 

   What a story it is—of ruin, destitution, oppression, greed, cruelty, anarchy, love, and redemption! And what a way it is narrated—by the entire ensemble acting at times like a collective voice! Every performer plays a part in the telling, from the lowliest supernumerary to the greatest villain and hero. This is an orchestra of voices under a superb conductor in Philip Franks, and though on the opening night, some of the voices pushed a little bit more than they needed to, and the instruments of acting were sometimes rushed, the score was magnificently performed. Transitions of mood and tone were handled with aplomb. Tempo was swift, sometimes causing the loss of subtleties, and Franks erred, I believe, in going for a broad comic tone beyond certain contexts (especially in the goofy Romeo and Juliet parody, and the almost spastic burlesque summary of Part I at the opening of Part II), but at least Dickens never nodded off.

   An entire world is placed before us and hardly needs the “busy” set of Simon Higlett, good in its spatial or geographical opportunities, but over-articulated in its riggings, staircases, platforms, balconies, and windows, and strangely out of texture with Dickens’ milieu. Mark Jonathan’s lighting, however, compensates, as does Higlett’s extraordinary costumes. And Stephen Oliver’s music and lyrics (anchored, of course, in English ballads, anthems, and carols) are a generous, colourful, purposive addition to David Edgar’s textual score, culminating in a sentimental ending with the singing of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Everything neatly tied together at the end, but this end comes only after hours of ugly, bitter, cruel, dangerous incident lightened by masses of comedy from low, middle, and high life. Playwright Edgar and director Franks are able to chart the moral line of the play, despite the sprawling plot. This is a brilliant example of sustained theatre, with animated tableaux, wonderful examples of cameo acting, parody (of theatre and opera, though the histrionic parody is much too coarse), epistolary reportage, apotheosized mood through song, farce (there’s a delicious moment when Fanny Squeers has a fainting spell backwards onto Nicholas, causing them both to collapse slowly to the floor), tense incident, and melodramatic climaxes.

   The sweep of Dickens is palpably felt in the adaptation, even in this slightly abridged version that drops some important sub-plots and characters. Nicholas finds himself, his mother, and sister left destitute after the death of his father, and he discovers that his Uncle Ralph has no real interest in him or his family. He becomes a schoolteacher at Dotheboys Hall with its woebegone boys—one of whom is the cripple Smike, who finds in Nicholas his great protector against beastly Wackford Squeers and wife. Nicholas can never forget or stop worrying about his mother and sister, and often has to find ways to protect them from life’s dangers. But as this noble, young hero struggles to find his way in a threatening world of villainous capitalists, schoolmasters, and libertines, there are masses of other characters, some of merely fleeting importance, others of episodic significance, who crowd his story. Besides Nicholas’ sweet but silly and garrulous mother, his beautiful sister Kate who is untutored about the wide world, and cold-hearted Uncle Ralph, there are the beneficent Welsh Cheerybles, the seamstress Madame Mantalini, and the touring fleabag theatrical troupe of Vincent Crummles (who gives Nicholas employment). There are Yorkshire louts and London aristocrats, Portsmouth provincials and London milliners, footmen, waiters, gamblers, and even carriages and horses (mimed superbly). It is difficult and, perhaps, unfair to single out some performers in such a wealth of talent on display, but there are particularly impressive performances by Alison Fiske as Mrs. La Creevy, painter in miniature; Pip Donaghy as Wackford Squeers; Veronica Roberts in a double turn as battle-axe Mrs. Squeers and then a histrionic Mrs. Crummles; Zoe Waites in triple duty as desperately man-hungry Fanny Squeers, Miss Snevellicci, and Madeline Bray (though this actress of a nice husky voice does exaggerate her flourishes); Philippa Stanton as the Infant Phenomenon (dizzy with pirouettes), as well as opera singer Mobbs; Jane Bertish’s Madame Mantalini; Tricia Kelly as a humiliated head seamstress; and burly Bob Barrett as Yorkshireman John Browdie, with an accent as broad as his frame. Of all the “minors” in this major work, the most authentically Dickensian sketch is Richard Bremmer’s as the old clerk Newman Noggs, all spidery legs and arms, grizzled, and played with eccentric knuckle-cracking and tipsy angularity.

  Of the three major roles in this epic story, Daniel Weyman’s lanky Nicholas is all decency and moral intelligence, though the actor cannot quite work the stickiness off the character’s righteousness. As his villainously cold Uncle Ralph, David Yelland delivers an impressively effective portrait, creating a credibly unsympathetic character with clever restraint yet dramatic power with his baritone voice. And David Dawson as the unfortunate, stuttering Smike, crippled in body and hope, creates the most heart-wrenching portrait of a victim of Victorian inhumanity, managing to balance raw comedy of gaucherie against touching pathos. He can move us to laughter (especially as the apothecary in an awful production of Romeo and Juliet) as easily as he can move us to tears as he battles his body. Dawson’s acting would be affecting even without the Dickens cachet, but it is magnified by a script that is never embarrassed by sentiment. The actor expresses the character’s growth in confidence by a physical alteration in his body. When he is distressed, he smacks his head. When he is happy or assured, he erects himself partially out of his crippled stance. But he is especially moving when he declares to Nicholas: “You are my home,” creating an excruciating emotional peak with this line. There is an intriguing Dickensian dynamic at play, with Nicholas, emotion welling within his spare frame, reaching out to rescue unfortunate Smike from the cruel inhumanity of his dark world as represented in the figure of Uncle Ralph, who cannot understand a broken heart and who regards all love as cant and vanity. As this production so eloquently and memorably reveals, there is an incandescent moral vision in this story that is not tied down to a specific historical era. Kudos to the entire company for letting us share in this vision by coaxing us to leave our minds and hearts open to Dickens’ magnificent humanity and our senses to this extraordinary company’s exhilarating craft.

photos: Robert Day

pic 1 (L-R): David Weyman (Nicholas), David Dawson (Smike)

pic 2: Richard Bremmer (Newman Noggs)


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