Nicholas Nickleby is newly employed as a teacher at Dotheboys' Hall in Yorkshire thanks to his manipulative and avaricious uncle Ralph, a businessman. There he witnesses the cruel treatment of boys at the hands of despotic headmaster Wackford Squeers and his wife. In coming to the defence of one boy, Smike, Nicholas assaults Squeers. Thinking he has killed him, he escapes with Smike to London and on to Portsmouth where the pair join the Crummles Theatre Company.Large flexible cast