Some parts were recast in November 1980, with Fulton Mackay playing Squeers, Emily Richard taking the role of Kate Nickleby and Christopher Benjamin as Crummles.

[3] When the Aldwych production closed in the summer of 1981 the set was moved to the Old Vic Theatre and the work performed for a four-part mini-series by Channel 4 and Mobil Showcase Theatre.,[5] which was telecast in the US in January 1983.

[9] Despite the play's success, its length and the size of the cast required means that it is seldom revived, although in 2006 Edgar prepared a shorter version for a production at the Chichester Festival, which transferred in December 2007 and January 2008 to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End.

This version has been produced in the US by the California Shakespeare Festival,[10] Playmakers Repertory Theater[11] and a production was performed at The Lyric Stage Company of Boston in October – December 2010.

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.

However, some critics felt that the RSC's ebullient staging, the necessary happy ending (brought about by benevolent capitalism as represented by the Cheeryble brothers) and even the huge commercial success of the play itself diminished the impact of Edgar's message.

The company (in alphabetical order): In the final episode of Season 3 of the U.S. drama television series The West Wing, the cast of a production of John Barton's The Wars of the Roses performs a rendition of "Patriotic Song" from The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.

Earlier in the same episode, the fictional President Bartlet quotes the chorus of "victorious in war shall be made glorious in peace" as he mulls the decision to commit a political assassination.