This chapter lets Dickens proffer his counter-model of theatre. It centers on Our Mutual Friend, but, just to give you a feel for the difficulties ahead, it starts in Nickleby. Later on I deal with Nickleby at considerable length, in chapters 3 and 4. Here I'm only interested in that relatively early section where Nicholas works in a theater. And I'm deploying it simply to show from the start how entirely misleading it is for anyone to argue, or believe, “that Dickens loved theatre” (Rubin 1981: 18).

We encounter Nicholas just as, having failed at the pre-scripted roles of private secretary and school usher, he unexpectedly finds himself snatched into the raucous, subversive world of the Crummles Theatrical Company in Portsmouth. Of course, Nicholas turns out to be a prepossessing young leading man; even his sidekick Smike emerges as a more or less acceptable clown. But Nicholas soon learns that his sister Kate, left unprotected in London, has become the target of an aristocratic seduction. He immediately denounces the damnable fooling that keeps him apart and impotent, returns to London, and successfully attacks the instigator of the intrigue, Sir Mulberry Hawk. So much for the stage.

And so much for the novel, because now we're going to imagine that Dickens, sensing there's money to be made, decides to rival the RSC and adapt Nickleby himself.