We are three quarters of the way through our Roger Rees memorial viewing of Nicholas Nickleby. For those unfamiliar with the work, this means 6 hours down, 2 to go.

I never saw the original production live; back in the early 1980s, London could have been a different country. It seemed completely inaccessible to a schoolgirl from Bolton.  I had at that time a crush on the entire RSC fuelled by annual pilgrimages to Stratford in the form of a week’s holiday each summer and so, despite not seeing the production live, I did have the RSC version of the book, the RSC book of the play, the RSC LP of the music. Channel 4’s decision to film and broadcast the show resulted in three carefully protected, much-loved, increasingly worn home-recorded VHS tapes, eventually superseded by the much-welcomed DVD release.

When Chichester Festival Theatre revived the production in 2007 we leapt at the chance to go, a multi-generational extended family group of us. The opening notes of Stephen Oliver’s overture moved me to tears; I had so longed to experience this phenomenal show in a live performance. It is a tremendous and wonderful sprawling ensemble work, encompassing Dickens’ fierce social anger as well as his comedy, sentimentality, grotesques and melodrama.

Watching it now, it seems timeless; as fresh and enjoyable as it was over twenty years ago. Indeed, the style is even more familiar and this is not just due to the direct legacy it has had within the theatre. It is also familiar now in the way it was filmed, which seems very similar to – is perhaps an inspiration for – the NT Live broadcasts. Nothing is done to convert the show into a conventional film or TV show; it merely seeks to translate, to carry across, the theatricality of performance. It is not as good as being there – how could it be? – but it is, perhaps, the next best thing.

Watching it now is, inevitably, accompanied by sadness as one realises that much loved faces – Griffiths Jones, the wonderful Bob Peck – have passed on. And now Roger Rees. I hadn’t realised, somehow, just how beautiful he is. Those eyes; those cheekbones. I hope he didn’t mind always being associated with this part: it is a tour de force. Although we have loved seeing him in later work (on our regular re-viewings of The West Wing we always relish the appearances of Lord John Marbury), it is as Nicholas that he will be remembered by us. Eternally youthful, fierce, funny, angry and principled, heroic and sometimes a little ridiculous. You cannot watch Nicholas Nickleby without falling in love with Roger Rees. And that’s why, now, thousands and thousands or people are – and it is a clumsy phrase but somehow it is the right one – just a little bit heart-broken by his passing.