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
Nicholas Nickleby (2002 film) hangs himself. Nicholas marries Madeline and settles with her in Devon at his father's house and grounds, where Smike is buried. In "Creating a Classic: The Making of Nicholas Nickleby", a bonus feature on the film's DVD release, screenwriter/director Douglas McGrath and his cast and crew discuss the development of the project. The positive audience reaction to a stage reading of the screenplay in a theater in lower Manhattan, which included a number of actors who eventually were cast in the film, convinced McGrath to proceed with the movie. At the request of production designer Eve Stewart, he advanced the