The Life & Adventures Of Nick Nickleby

Status: Completed

A five part adapation of the much loved Dickens classic The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. The Life and Adventures of Nick Nickleby has been updated to reflect concerns and questions about modern Britain, so Dickens’ exploration of corruption within private boarding schools is transposed to care-homes for the elderly. Just as Dickens did, the drama invites the audience to reflect on how the vulnerable suffer when the pursuit of profit is valued more than human kindness.

Nick Nickleby is a hot-headed but caring, young man. After his father’s death and the family farm is repossessed, Nick travels to London with his batty old mum and gorgeous, younger sister, Kat, to seek help from rich Uncle Ralph, the owner of a chain of high profile care homes. Nick is packed off to work in one of the care homes in the North, where he befriends and rescues Mrs Smike, a mouthy but somewhat confused old lady who is appallingly mistreated by Wackford Squeers, the care home supervisor. And so begins Nick’s journey, in which he fights corruption, rescues his sister from the lascivious intentions of his uncle’s dubious business partner, falls in love with the self-possessed, single mum Madhi and is finally able to claim back the family farm.