Left penniless by the death of his father, 19-year-old Nicholas Nickleby seeks help, along with his mother and sister, from Uncle Ralph Nickleby. The hard-hearted money lender takes an instant dislike to his nephew and gets rid of the boy by securing him a teaching position at Dotheboys Hall, where the evil Wackford Squeers presides. Horrified by the barbarity he sees there, Nicholas defies Squeers and is forced to flee. He is joined by Smike, who has been treated cruelly by Squeers, and the two become great friends.
Nicholas joins a travelling theatre troupe and enjoys great success, but with his mother and sister depending on him for their survival, he must find a way to make a decent living. His adventures are numerous and include some of Dickens' most comic characters.
Starring Anna Massey, Sophie Thompson, Ken Campbell, and Tom Baker, with Alex Jennings as the voice of Dickens.
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"Pg. 8 Some London houses have a melancholy little plot of ground behind them, usually fenced in by four high whitewashed walls, and frowned upon by stacks of chimneys: in which there withers on, from year to year, a crippled tree, that makes a show of putting forth a few leaves late in autumn when other trees shed theirs, and, drooping in the effort, lingers on, all crackled and smoke-dried, till the following season, when it repeats the same process, and perhaps if the weather be particularly genial, even tempts some rheumatic sparrow to chirrup in its branches."
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Danelle (5 out of 5 stars)