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Song 13:  Brimstone and Treacle

 

 

Squeers then addresses the boys, reporting that he has seen some of their parents in London. Bolder's parents were short with their school fees so Squeers gives the boy a thrashing. He also reports on a family bereavement without any trace of sympathy. After beating another boy, Squeers tells Nicholas to take the boys outside and break the ice in the well, so they can all wash down before classes. Nicholas does as he is told.

 

 

(Author’s note:  as in Act One Nicholas does not have many lines to say, but the audience need to see his emotional reactions to what is going on. The part of Nicholas is arguably the hardest role in the show. Without upstaging Squeers during his dialogue Nicholas does have to subtly show us what he is thinking, because it is his growing sense of injustice and anger that leads to the climax of the Dotheboys Hall revolution on page 68 of the libretto.)

 

 

Mrs. Squeers tells her husband how much she hates Nicholas because she finds him to be proud and haughty. Squeers tries to calm his wife and tells her to leave Nicholas alone. He comes cheaply and they are in need of an assistant.

 

 

Does Mrs. Squeers dislike Nicholas because she can see that he disapproves of the way the pupils are abused by Mr. Squeers?  Or is she hiding a secret attraction that she feels for him?

 

 

In a fantasy section, Mrs. Squeers moves towards Nicholas and leads him to a couch. Her voice takes a less coarse and more seductive air as she asks him to sit down and have his fortune told. Sitting with Nicholas, Mrs. Squeers tells him his future with cards.

 

 

Song 14:  Your Kind Of Woman

 

 

(Author’s note:  In some of the Smike productions I have seen, this song has been the showstopper of the evening, performed by an outrageous Mrs. Squeers who finds expression for her fantasies in trying to seduce Nicholas.  In other productions with a younger cast it has been appropriate to cut this song which was incidentally not in the original production of the show by Kingston Grammar School in 1973 or in the BBC TV Production.)

 

 

The Queen of Hearts comes up revealing that there is a woman soon to be in Nickleby’s life. As she continues to sing to him, Mrs. Squeers becomes that woman. After the fantasy sequence has finished Mrs. Squeers returns to her original position proclaiming just how much she hates Nicholas.

 

 

The washed boys come for their lessons and sit at their desks. It shocks Nicholas to find that rather than spending their time learning, Squeers has most of the boys attending to the household chores. Squeers leaves to go and get a drink while Nicholas tries to teach the boys some Latin.

 

Fanny and her friend, Tilda, look into the classroom, and watch Nicholas as he teaches. Fanny proclaims that she is in love with Nicholas and that he is going to marry her. She adds that he, in fact, made his intentions very clear at dinner. Tilda finds this rather unbelievable, but Fanny continues to create her own world of fantasy.

 

 

Song 15:  We’ll Find Our Day

 

 

This is another fantasy song, this time played out in Fanny’s dream world in which she exchanges vows with Nicholas. (Author’s note: the song is both lyrically and stylistically a parody of every love song cliché and needs to be overplayed by the 2 “lovers”.)

 

 

After the song is over, we return to reality and Fanny enters the classroom to talk with Nicholas. All she is able to do to ask him for a pen. As she stands there watching him teach his class, Tilda embarrasses her in front of Nicholas and the students. Nicholas makes it clear that there is absolutely no relationship between him and Fanny.

 

 

This results in Fanny and Tilda getting into an unseemly name calling argument with each other. Nicholas diplomatically tells the boys to go outside with him for a short break.

 

 

Fanny dismisses Tilda and is left on her own. In a fit of anger she starts to tear up the schoolbooks and upturn the class desks/benches in a jealous rage.  She then realizes what damage she has caused, and as she stands in the midst of the chaos she has created, she calls for Smike to help her clean up, which he begins to do.

 

 

Squeers enters and sees the mess and assumes that Smike is responsible. With that, he calls Nicholas and the boys back so they can see him punish the boy with a beating.

 

 

Nickleby’s frustration and anger with the Squeers family has reached boiling point. He cannot stand by and see Smike unfairly treated.  In Act 1 Scene 1 (Here I Am Looking For My Name) the teacher was searching for a reason to be with these young people. Now it is clear what he has to do. He must protect them from abuse and defend them from the evil Squeers family.

synopsis page 4

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