A pretty good adaptation. There's some nice use of use colour to distinguish between the vibrant dress makers in London and the bleak and grim school in Yorkshire. Charles Dance plays his part well as the harsh and ruthless uncle of Nicholas Nickleby, a character who grows increasingly harsh over the series and willing to commit all kinds of unpleasant actions for financial advantage. Wackford Squeers is grotesque as is his wife, he's a comically cruel and crude man, a glutton and a bully. Kate is portrayed very well as goodhearted demure and attractive sister. There is some pretty good comedy in the series, especially episode 1 at the mad dress makers and with Nicholas struggling to cope a bit with Mr Squeer's daughter who's taken a fancy to him with some pretty hilarious results. The story is probably the closet Dickens comes to expressing his love for the theatre too and this series does that too. This has many of the features of a classic Dickens story, a young idealistic male hero, prisons for debtors, kind hearted old gentleman ready to come to the financial assistance of our characters, we have the romance, the cold hearted miser, the celebration of imagination we get in David Copperfield and Hard Times. Smike provides the tragic figure of the story like Tiny Tim or Stephen Blackpool. The second half of the story turns into pure Victorian melodrama with a really dastardly plot. There's a good mixture actually of humour and horror in this story, Kate and Nicholas may seem bland and too angelic but it's fairly faithful to the book in that regard, Nicholas actually is a bit hot headed in the story. Kate and Madeline though express the ideal form of Victorian womanhood. All in all a pretty strong adaptation. The DVD comes with 16:9 aspect ratio and good sound quality. The casting went pretty well I thought it was overall pretty enjoyable.
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
(2001 TV Movie)
Decent adaption but nothing on the book.
28 December 2023