1988 : Nicholas Nickleby

Directed by Bob Blake, Clive Butcher, David Johnson, Colin Masters.

Nicholas Nickleby - The Story
When their father dies Nicholas, his sister Kate and their mother Mrs Nickleby move to London hoping for help from Ralph Nickleby, their father's brother who is a rich, miserly businessman.
Ralph arranges employment for Nicholas at a school in Yorkshire, Dotheboys Hall, run by a cruel ruffian, Mr Wackord Squeers. Nicholas is appalled by the conditions that exist in the school. He befriends a crippled outcast, Smike.
In London, Kate and her mother are taken from their lodgings, with the portrait painter Miss La Creevy, to a miserable house in the East End of London by Ralph's clerk, Newman Noggs. Kate is found employment at a millinery establishment run by Madame Mantelini.
Back in Yorkshire Nicholas finds himself the unwilling object of the affections of Fanny, Squeers' ugly daughter. Srnike runs away from the school but is recaptured and beaten by Squeers. Nicholas intervenes and roughly beats the schoolmaster himself.
Nicholas and Smike escape to London where they find shelter with Newman Noggs, Ralph's clerk. Nicholas seeks for work and Newman helps him obtain the position of tutor to the Kenwigs Family who live nearby. When Ralph hears that Nicholas has left Yorkshire he renounces him and declares that Mr Nickleby and Kate will also be deprived of his help unless they, too, renounce Nicholas. Nicholas, afraid of what this will mean to his family, leaves London with Smike and travels to Portsmouth where he joins the theatre company of Vincent Crummles.
Meanwhile, in London, Kate as hostess for her uncle is the object of the unwanted attentions of the debauched Sir Mulberry Hawk and his young dupe, Lord Frederick Verisopht. She is humiliated and begs her uncle to protect her. He refuses.
At the theatre in Portsmouth, Nicholas is an instant success with the patrons and with Miss Snevellicci.
However, in London Madame Mantalini is made bankrupt because of the profligate spending of her husband. Kate loses her job and becomes companion to the neurotic Mrs Wititterly. Hawk continues to press his unwanted attentions on Kate.
In Portsmouth, Nicholas, hearing of Kate's troubles, returns to London. He confronts Hawk who is injured in the encounter and who swears to get his revenge. Nicholas, enraged by Ralph's behaviour towards Kate, sends him a letter to say that the whole family renounce him. They leave the derelict house and move back to Miss La Creevy in the Strand.
Nicholas gains employment at an excellent salary with the brothers Cheeryble. Through the brothers he meets and falls in love with Madeline. Her father, Walter Bray, is in debtors prison.
Smike, now living with the Nicklebys, is wandering in the streets of London when he is recaptured by Squeem and imprisoned at the house of Mr Snawley, the stepfather of two of Squeers' pupils. However he is set free by John Browdie, a miller from Yorkshire and friend of Nicholas, who is in London to celebrate his honeymoon.
While on his way to see John Browdie, Nicholas is embroiled in the aftermath of a fight and intercedes on behalf of a young man who turns out to be the Cheerybles' nephew, Frank.
To vent his hatred of Nicholas, Ralph devises a plan which appears to prove that Smike is the son of Snawley. John Browdie once again saves Smike. Frank begins to fall in love with Kate.
Noggs overhears Ralph and the awful moneylender Gride hatching a plot to deprive Madeline of her fortune and also to trap her into marriage with Gride himself.
Hawk and Verisopht quarrel and fight a duel over Hawk's plan to take his revenge on Nicholas.. Verisopht goes to the appointment knowing that if he is killed then the £10,000 he owes Ralph will never be repaid.
Nicholas and Kate, learning of the marriage plot, interrupt the wedding ceremony at Ralph's house and are themselves interrupted by Hawk's arrival with the announcement that he has killed Verisopht. Ralph finds that not only has he lost £10,000 but that Peg Sliderskew, Gride's jealous servant, has stolen Madeline's deed. If anyone should read it then Ralph's deception would be discovered. So, with a bribed Squeers, he sets about recovering the document, only to find that both Peg and Squeers have been arrested.
Smike becomes ill and Nicholas and Kate take him to their old home in Devon. There they discuss their love for Frank and Madeline but, because of their lack of money, resolve not to marry. Smike grows weaker and dies peacefully in the arms of Nicholas.
Noggs has used his knowledge of Ralph to unmask him to the Cheerybles. An ex-employee, Brooker, arrives to denounce Ralph as the uncaring, manipulative father of Smike. Ralph, overburdened by the collapse of his world, commits suicide.
The Cheerybles persuade Nicholas and Kate to overcome their scruples about money and so they both marry their respective loved ones. Nicholas' happiness is marred by his memory of the brutal school in Yorkshire so he returns and, finding that Squeers is to be deported to Australia, encourages the boys to rebel and smash up the hated institution.
In time Nicholas becomes a partner in the Cheerybles' firm, buys his old house in Devon and lives there with Madeline and their children. Frank and Kate buy a neighbouring property and Mrs Nickleby lives sometimes with Kate and sometimes with Nicholas.
At Christmas, as everyone is gathering to sing carols, Nicholas looks through the window and, in the gathering darkness, sees the shivering form of a new Smike.

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