2.25.2008

my friend charles dickens comes to town

The day after those award ceremonies I pay no attention to seems like a good time to highlight a dead medium's presentation of a dead genre: "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby", David Edgar's stage adaptation of Charles Dickens's comic novel.

I was very fortunate to see the original Royal Shakespeare Production of "Nicholas Nickleby," an eight-hour marathon presented in two parts, when I was in university.

I was an English major specializing in Victorian literature, a complete Dickens-head, and a huge lover of theatre (as I always have been). I went to school in Philadelphia. A friend and I took the bus up to New York - without telling our families, who would have wanted to see us - and got discount tickets, which still cost more than our food budgets for the month. That remains one of the greatest theatre experiences of my life.

Two years later, the production was recreated for BBC and PBS television - not a film adaptation, but a filming of the actual play. Eight glorious hours. I would have watched it for sixteen.

Last night "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" opened in Toronto. The new adaptation shaves off two hours from the original (sell outs!), but features 27 actors playing more than 150 characters.

I am dying to see this. We are saving money for our trip to Newfoundland in June - and a large tax bill. I know I shouldn't spend the money. Whether I will or not remains to be seen.

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