Nicholas Nickleby

1 9 6 8 (UK)
13 x 25 minute episodes

This Charles Dickens classic was first seen as a BBC television serial in 1957. This new version – adapted for television by Hugh Leonard – debuted on Sunday 11 February 1968 and featured Forsyte Saga star Martin Jarvis in the title role.

Left penniless at the death of his father, Nicholas Nickleby (Martin Jarvis) is found employment by his miserly, flint-hearted Uncle Ralph (Derek Francis) at Dotheboys Hall, a squalid academy for boys owned by the drunken, brutal schoolmaster Mr Wackford Squeers (Ronald Radd), who starves and maltreats 40 urchins under the pretence of education.

Nicholas is appalled to find that Squeers especially delights in being cruel to Smike (Hugh Walters), a pathetic and simple-minded orphan boy left in his hands and employed as a drudge.

Defending Smike from Squeers’s brutality, Nicholas thrashes Squeers and leaves Dotheboys Hall for London, and Smike follows him.

Meanwhile, Nicholas’s younger sister Kate (Susan Brodrick) has been apprenticed to the dithery dressmaker Mme. Mantalini (Thelma Ruby). She is invited to dinner by Ralph Nickleby, where she must endure the attentions of his dissolute associates, Lord Verisopht (Raymond Clarke) and Sir Mulberry Hawk (Terence Alexander).

On his arrival in London with Smike, Nicholas is informed by Ralph’s clerk, Newman Noggs (Australian actor Gordon Gostelow), that Squeers has written to Ralph Nickleby, accusing Nicholas of stealing jewellery belonging to Mrs Squeers.

Nicholas and Smike leave London and find employment with Vincent Crummles (Dermot Tuohy) and his company of strolling players. When Nicholas overhears a stranger talking about Kate in most familiar and uncomplimentary terms, he demands to know the man’s name. The stranger (Sir Mulberry Hawk) refuses, and Nicholas follows him to his private cab, but is struck by a whip.

The horse rears up, whinnying in terror, and gallops off. Seconds later, the coach crashes and overturns. Nicholas runs away and finds employment with the kindly Cheeryble brothers.

Smike is captured by Squeers but manages to escape and Nicholas falls in love with penniless artist Madeline Bray (Sharon Gurney), who has to work to support her spendthrift father.

But Ralph Nickleby is helping Arthur Gride (Geoffrey Bayldon), a sensual old man, in his plot to marry Madeline.

Smike succumbs to tuberculosis and dies. The Cheerybles’ nephew Frank (Paul Shelley) falls in love with Kate Nickleby, and Squeers’s attempt to steal papers concerning Madeline is foiled by Frank and Newman Noggs.

Ralph Nickleby is revealed to be Smike’s real father, and – grief-stricken and confronted by his role in Smike’s suffering – commits suicide.

Squeers is arrested and transported to Australia, while Dotheboys Hall is closed down.

Nicholas marries Madeline, Kate weds Frank, and the Nicklebys – now prosperous – return to Devonshire.

Nicholas Nickleby
Martin Jarvis
Kate Nickleby
Susan Brodrick
Smike
Hugh Walters
Ralph Nickleby
Derek Francis
Newman Noggs
Gordon Gostelow
Mrs Catherine Nickleby
Thea Holme
Wackford Squeers
Ronald Radd
Mr Mantalini
Maxwell Shaw
Madame Mantalini
Thelma Ruby
Sir Mulberry Hawk
Terence Alexander
Madeline Bray
Sharon Gurney
Miss La Creevy
Hazel Coppen
Lord Frederick Verisopht
Raymond Clarke
Arthur Gride
Geoffrey Bayldon
Brooker
John Bailey
Tim Linkinwater
Bartlett Mullins
Wackford Junior
Malcolm Epstein
Master Crummles
Christopher Witty
Fanny Squeers
Karin MacCarthy
Frank Cheeryble
Paul Shelley
Ned Cheeryble
John Gill
Charles Cheeryble
Edward Palmer
Vincent Crummles
Dermot Tuohy
Mrs Crummles
Marie Hopps

Episodes

Fine Beginnings | Dotheboys Hall | The Escape | The Dinner Party | The Profession | The Gallants | Account Rendered | Captured | Escape | Madeline Bray | The Duel | A Journey for Smike | Smike’s Father