It’s always interesting to see big name Hollywood stars taking to the boards of the theatre stage, and the latest entrant is Nicole Kidman (Paddington), who will be starring in Photograph 51 at the Noël Coward Theatre later this year (2015). It’s not her first turn on London’s West End, but if she can match her 1998 debut performance in The Blue Room, then her she should be a firm contender for a number of award nominations over the next year.
The award-winning play will be making its UK premier, having been successful in Maryland, New York and Los Angeles in the States, on the 5th September 2015, with a production that will run until the 21st November 2015. More than 20,000 tickets will be available for the play at just £10, making it pretty accessible to all, although these are selling pretty fast. Standard tickets are then £65, with premium tickets available at £105. Show times are 7:30pm Monday to Saturday with 3pm matinee performances on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Photograph 51 tells the story of British chemist and x-ray christallographer Rosalind Franklin, who’s work went on to provide evidence that helped Crick and Watson in identifying the structure of DNA. However, with the discovery going on to be considered the scientific breakthrough of the 20th century, it’s surprising that Franklin hasn’t gone on to be a household name in the same way as , but perhaps the play will help to redress the balance a little.
It’s a story that’s almost as complex as the double helix that it went on to help identify. Franklin led a small team of chemists at King’s College London during the 1950s, that included a PhD student called Raymond Gosling, who took the x-ray diffraction image that went on to become nicknamed Photograph 51 under Franklin’s supervision. It was subsequently shown to James Watson by Maurice Wilkins, without Rosalind’s approval or knowledge. It has led to a fair amount of scientific controversy, which is added to by the fact that Watson, Crick and Wilkins picked up a Nobel Prize for their work in 1962, while Franklin died as a result of cancer in 1958.
The play was written by Anna Ziegler, and it went on to win the 2008 STAGE International Competition for the best script about science and technology, following its original production at the Active Cultures Theatre in Maryland, USA. Michael Grandage is directing the Noël Coward Theatre production. He’s also directing Nicole Kidman in his first feature film, Genius, a biographical drama about literary editor Max Perkins, which will be released in 2016.
