More and More Dickens

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 757, 22 January 1954, Page 5

More and More Dickens

-\VHEN a dear, courageous lad of 19 goes to work for a cruel, villainous character named Wackford Squeers (while his gentle sister Kate is exposed to the gross insults of a certain Sir Mulberry Hawk) there can be but one man telling the story. It’s Dickens; the very Dickens whose Mr. Pickwick is at present being heard from 4YC, But this time the production is by the BBC, and the novel is Nicholas Nickleby, The first of 12 episodes will be broadcast by 2YC at 10,0 p.m. on Saturday, January 30. Nicholas, together with his mother* and sister, are left penniless on the death of/his father. The family relies for help on an uncle, Ralph Nickleby, but he is a griping usurer and it is not surprising that Nicholas is sent to that infamous school. Dotheboys Hall, Listeners will meet, in the first episode, the principal of this unpleasant place, besides making the acquaintance of the wicked ‘uncle; of Newman Noggs, the uncle’s downtrodden clerk, and of the miniature painter, Miss La Creevy.

Charles’ Lefeaux, who adapted the novel for broadcasting, has described in the Radio Times the problems facing anyone who sets out to adapt Dickens, a writer whose works teem with sub-plots, characters, incidents and descriptive mat-

ter. He set himself these rules: first, to concentrate on the story and_ shear away anything that did not further the plot’s development; second, to drama‘tise fully and not allow the voice of a narrator to intrude or interrupt; and finally, to remember that many characters which are admirable upon the printed page are disastrous in the studio. A further series of Dickens programmes produced by the BBC is also to be broadcast shortly. Entitled Portraits from Dickens, it consists of short

vignettes of five of the novelist’s most outstanding secondary characters. They are Mr, Jaggers, Pip’s guardian in Great Expectations; Sarah Gamp, the snuffy, gin-tippling nurse of Martin Chuzzlewit, whose inseparable umbrella added a new word to the English language; Miss Miggs, of Barnaby Rudge, who was "though not absolutely ill-look-ing, of a sharp and acid visage," and wo lost her place when she came out on the side of the Gordon rioters; Grandfather Smallweed, whom readers of Bleak House will remember as the decrepit old miser who kept a spare cushion handy to fling at his spouse whenever she talked of money; and Mr. F’s Aunt, from Little Dorrit, an eccentric old woman with stiff yellow wig and an inspired irrelevance of conversation, Nicholas Nickleby: 2YC, 10.0 p.m., Saturday, January 30, and later from other National stations. Portraits from Dickens: 1YC, 10.2 p.m,, Thursday, January 28, and later from other National stations.