Nicole Kidman made her stunning West End debut in 1998 and is now set to return for the first time in 17 years. The Australian actress will take the lead role as British scientist Rosalind Franklin in a Michael Grandage production of Photograph 51.
In the years since Nicole starred in The Blue Room, which won her critical acclaim, she has often spoken of her desire to return to the stage, saying in 2014 that "life and other work have conspired to keep me away, but I’m determined to make at least one of the proposals work".
© Photo: Getty ImagesNicole Kidman at the 2015 Academy Awards
Photograph 51 is a play by Anna Ziegler which traces the untold story of chemist Rosalind Franklin, whose work with x-rays helped to reveal the double-helix shape of DNA, which eventually led to the discovery of the structure of DNA.
Scientists Francis Crick and James Watson went on to win a Nobel Prize for their work, but Rosalind's part in the discovery has often gone overlooked, and Photograph 51 charts Rosalind's career and the sexism which caused her to be kept out of the spotlight.
Nicole had also been rumoured to be starring in a production of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country. Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2014 of the possibility of doing both, Nicole added: "Who knows? Both of the proposals might come together.
"That’s the idea: two in a row."
© Photo: RexNicole Kidman in The Blue Room in 1998
The Blue Room was such a success in London that it transferred to Broadway keeping Nicole as its star, but it came as no surprise to fans of the Oscar winner, who had trained in her youth in Australia with various theatre groups.
The proud Aussie lives in Nashville now with her husband Keith Urban and their children, but regularly returns to her homeland to star in Australian films. Nicole is currently filming Lion, the true story of a young boy, Saroo Brierly, who was separated from his parents in India after getting stuck on a train and was later adopted by an Australian family.
Dev Patel stars as Saroo, who used the power of Google to retrace his steps in order to find his birth parents.
