Almost two decades after her West End debut, Nicole Kidman returns - but her icy performance doesn't quite convince all the critics

  • Nicole Kidman last appeared on the West End in The Blue Room in 1998
  • This week she returns as scientist Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51
  • But the actress' controlled performance has not convinced all the critics

Frosty: Kidman plays Rosalind Franklin, the socially awkward X-ray crystallographer

Frosty: Kidman plays Rosalind Franklin, the socially awkward X-ray crystallographer

Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman returned to the West End last night, nearly two decades after she last trod the boards in London. 

But her controlled portrayal of scientist Rosalind Franklin in Photograph 51 - a play that highlights the crucial role played by Franklin in identifying the structure of DNA - has failed to impress all critics, with the Daily Mail's Quentin Letts questioning her detached performance.  

It comes 17 years after the 48-year-old actress appeared in David Hare's The Blue Room at the Donmar, a sexually-charged production that prompted the Telegraph's then critic Charles Spencer to describe her performance as 'pure theatrical Viagra'. 

In the years since, she has garnered critical acclaim in a series of leading roles on film, earning Oscar nominations for three - Moulin Rouge! and Rabbit Hole - and taking home the gong for The Hours.

This week she made her return to the stage at in Anna Ziegler's play. Much of its three-month run at the Noel Coward theatre is already heavily booked. 

Kidman plays Franklin, the socially awkward X-ray crystallographer whose research helped Francis Crick, James Watson and the lesser-known Maurice Wilkins win a Nobel prize.

But her controlled performance as the seriously-minded Franklin failed to convince all the critics. 

The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts was not entirely impressed, calling the overall production 'a gripping, if slightly frosty affair'.

Awarding the production four stars, he writes: 'There is complete confidence about [Kidman] on stage. We need never worry that she is not entirely consumed by the role. But do we weep at Franklin's fate?

'When, in a passage near the end, she talks of her desire to be kissed, does it chime with the way Miss Kidman has played her? I was not wholly convinced. This brilliant X-ray scientist could have been a little more transparent, showing a little more flesh and blood.'

He adds that at '48 she just about passes for this 30-something scientist. 

'She is not quite dark enough for Franklin and I could have done with her making this devoted scientist a little less detached.' 

The Hollywood Reporter shared Letts' view that Ziegler's play is a 'little stark', calling it a 'blend of straight bio-drama and high-school science lesson'. 

But critic Stephen Dalton said Kidman's 'marquee appeal' saved the show from becoming dowdy. 

Scroll down for video 

Focus: The Hollywood actress in rehearsals for Photograph 51 as pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin

Focus: The Hollywood actress in rehearsals for Photograph 51 as pioneering scientist Rosalind Franklin

Dominic Cavendish for the Telegraph, who also gave the performance four stars, was more convinced by Kidman's subtlety on stage.

He wrote: 'Kidman displays once again the power to hold us in thrall. Although her kit is Fifties demure, the caboodle of her nuanced performance is the stuff of intoxication.

'By turns icily impatient and glowering, but thawing too for telling moments, Kidman brilliantly suggests an intelligent woman compacted of porcelain and steel.'

The critic also acknowledges difference in subject between Photograph 51 and The Blue Room.

He said: 'As an acting choice, it could hardly be further removed from the sexually charged carousel of characters she paraded before Donmar audiences all those years ago. 

'This time, there’s no disrobing (however fleeting). As presented in Photograph 51, Franklin is so buttoned-up it’s rare to see her flash a smile.'

The Times also acknowledges the difference in subject matter between the two plays, but Ann Treneman says Kidman provides 'thrills of a different kind'.

'Sexy?' she asks. 'This is pure theatrical DNA.'

Franklin's character is a complex one and Kidman is successful in capturing those intricacies, says the Guardian's Michael Billington. 

'Kidman bridles at the routine sexism of academic life, rejects Wilkins's cack-handed attempts to win her over and looks nervously away when a sympathetic American colleague invites her to dinner.

'But Kidman also conveys the ecstasy of scientific discovery: her features acquire a luminous intensity as she stares at the photograph that reveals the helix pattern.'

His only complaint about Anna Ziegler’s play is that it's not longer. 

The actress, who has starred in the blockbuster films The Others and Cold Mountain, delivers a 'compelling and subtle' performance, says the Independent.

Support: Kidman leaves the theatre with husband Keith Urban
The actress with David Walliams

Support: Kidman leaves the theatre with husband Keith Urban, left. Right, with actor David Walliams

'Kidman beautifully captures the prickly defensiveness, the lonely dedication, and the suppressed emotional longings of the scientist,' says Paul Taylor.

The critic goes on to sum up the theatrical experience in one word - 'glorious'.

Ben Brantley for the New York Times offers a similarly glowing review, concluding her performance 'is pretty close to perfection'.

He writes: Ms Kidman grabs onto such details of character without wringing them dry.

'And she deftly pulls off the trick of letting Franklin reveal to us an underlying wistfulness (even before an 11 o’clock monologue that spells it out) without ever allowing us to think that the others onstage have sensed the same vulnerability.'

Star: Fans mobbed the 48-year-old Australian actress outside the stage door of the Noel Coward theatre

Star: Fans mobbed the 48-year-old Australian actress outside the stage door of the Noel Coward theatre

COMPELLING AND SUBTLE BUT SLIGHTLY FROSTY: CRITICS REVIEW KIDMAN

Controlled: Nicole Kidman as Franklin

Controlled: Nicole Kidman as Franklin

Daily Mail

Rating:

'Science is not easy to portray on stage but Michael Grandage’s fluent direction and Nicole Kidman’s stellar control make Photograph 51 – a play about microscopic images of DNA – a gripping, if slightly frosty affair.

'This show clicks like the shutter of a hi-tech laboratory camera. Its picture is clear, detailed, ambitious; a little stark and negative in places, too, though.'

The Telegraph 

Rating:

'... In taking us to the heart of her story, which itself sits at the centre of one of the most significant discoveries of all time – the structure of DNA – Kidman displays once again the power to hold us in thrall. Although her kit is Fifties demure, the caboodle of her nuanced performance is the stuff of intoxication.'

The Times 

Rating:

'The last time that Nicole Kidman was on stage in London, 17 years ago, her performance in The Blue Room, at times semi-clad, was described as 'pure theatrical Viagra'.

'This time, in Photograph 51, she is providing thrills of a different kind.'

The Guardian 

Rating:

'Kidman bridles at the routine sexism of academic life, rejects Wilkins’s cack-handed attempts to win her over and looks nervously away when a sympathetic American colleague invites her to dinner. 

'But Kidman also conveys the ecstasy of scientific discovery: her features acquire a luminous intensity as she stares at the photograph that reveals the helix pattern.'

The Independent

Rating:

'In her compelling and subtle performance, Kidman beautifully captures the prickly defensiveness, the lonely dedication, and the suppressed emotional longings of the scientist.'

The New York Times

'Ms. Kidman, who turns Franklin’s guardedness into as much a revelation as a concealment of character, is pretty close to perfection.' 

The Stage 

Rating:

'Here she doesn’t strip physically, as she famously did then [in 1998], but the emotional layers are gradually exposed no less revealingly.'

The Hollywood Reporter 

'Photograph 51 feels oddly staid and conventional, perhaps because Ziegler's play is essentially a middling blend of straight bio-drama and high-school science lesson. Without Kidman's marquee appeal, it would feel a little dowdy for the West End. 

'Fortunately, Kidman delivers.' 

The comments below have not been moderated.

The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.

By posting your comment you agree to our house rules.

Who is this week's top commenter? Find out now