The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (play) reception was enthusiastic, critical reception was mixed. Frank Rich in "New York Times" reported dull passages piling up as "dead weight", while John Simon in the "New York Magazine" felt that the work was a "middlebrow enterprise" doing "scant justice" to the novel. In contrast Mel Gussow, again in "The New York Times", noted that ""Nicholas Nickleby" remains true to Dickens – many of the lines are taken directly from the novel, dialogue as well as narration – and to first principles of theater" when describing the RSC's recast production in 1986. Playwright and reviewer Thomas Hischak, writing in retrospect
New Theatre Royal not by day, Smike—not by day.' " Nicholas Nickleby Charles Dickens 1838–39 Dickens was born in Portsmouth and visited the theatre in 1838 to research Nicholas Nickleby. He was not only a brilliant writer but a consummate performer and would-be actor. His readings were legendary and made him a 19th-century celebrity. There is a belief that he may have performed at the Portsmouth Theatre but this is unlikely. His descriptions in Nicholas Nickleby show that in addition to the auditorium he visited the stage and back stage but his career as a public performer began some ten years into his