Rose Theatre Kingston Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★★

“Rosen proves that magnificent theatre requires no grand spectacle”

A burst of disco lights and roaring cheers is hardly a traditional literary curtain-raiser. Yet, as Michael Rosen takes the stage for Nice!, the energy crackles with the familiarity of a joyous reunion. The setting is stripped bare—just an armchair, a small table, and a screen—but in Rosen’s hands, this sparse canvas conjures entirely new worlds. He begins with a rolling wave of hellos, sweeping the stalls and upper circles, instantly dismantling the invisible wall between performer and audience.

What follows is a masterclass in pacing, unfolding with conversational grace. Rosen glides seamlessly from self-mockery about the endless “Rose versus Rosen” mix-ups to musings on his favourite foods. He then reveals the mechanics of his craft, demonstrating how the rhythmic pounding of a run translates into poetry in his head. His legendary physicality transforms simple anecdotes into vivid theatre. He even leads the house through a nine-word story exercise, subtly planting seeds of creative writing in hundreds of minds at once.

The brilliance lies in balancing poignant lyricism with uproarious comedy. A collective hush falls during a sublime rhythm poem—moving from a hand feeling the shudder of a train to the deeply moving “hand on your life, feel the rhyme of time.” Yet, in a heartbeat, wistfulness dissolves into the raucous, call-and-response joy of dog rhythms. The theatre rings with laughter as the audience eagerly matches his couplets, unwittingly absorbing poetic structure through sheer delight.

For lifelong fans, the repertoire is a treasure chest. The breakdown of Dad Knows Everything—centred on the immortal baked potato incident—brilliantly isolates that universal childhood epiphany when parents are suddenly proven fallible. Yet, Rosen isn’t frozen in nostalgia. He gleefully leans into his status as a modern internet icon, playfully referencing his viral meme fame and the universally recognised ‘Nice’ grandpa in Chinatown. It proves his charm organically crosses cultural boundaries.

The climax is undoubtedly Chocolate Cake. Here, the marriage of Rosen’s physical comedy and subtle screen animations achieve flawless theatricality. Miming the creaky wooden box and agonising over stray crumbs, he doesn’t just act; he resurrects the precise, guilty psychology of childhood temptation. We follow this with wildly imaginative detours—claiming to be a 3,000-year-old Stone Age survivor, and leading the house in a breathless standoff against a notoriously strict teacher.

When the house lights rise for a Q&A, the space is thick with the raised hands of eager children. Rosen treats every question with respect, cleverly guiding the conversation back to his books.

Billed for “the young to the young at heart,” Nice! proves this with its sprawling demographic. The gentle architect of countless childhoods, Rosen proves that magnificent theatre requires no grand spectacle—just a generous heart, a sharp wit, and a voice making us feel profoundly understood

Copenhagen

Cambridge Arts Theatre

Reviewed – 12th July 2021

★★★★

“With the excellence of the three actors’ diction and their evident belief in their doctrines, I can convince myself I even understand it all”

Why did the physicist Werner Heisenberg visit his former colleague Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in 1941? Heisenberg was German, Bohr Danish and half-Jewish, and Copenhagen was under Nazi occupation. It is a question we hear asked on numerous occasions during Michael Frayn’s award-winning play from 1998, in this new production directed by Emma Howlett following initial direction by Polly Findlay.

There are just three characters in the re-enactment of this puzzling wartime conundrum. The impetuous, excitable Heisenberg played by the excellent Philip Arditti, the older and more ponderous Bohr (Malcolm Sinclair), and between them Bohr’s wife Margrethe (Haydn Gwynne).

There is minimal set (designed by Alex Eales) with the stage stripped back to its black painted walls. A few parlour chairs and a sideboard suffice for Bohr’s drawing room. Hovering above everything is a large illuminated white halo; at the beginning, perhaps indicating the movement of an electron orbiting its atomic nucleus. By the end of the play, surely portraying the rim of an exploding mushroom cloud. Beneath it, there is not much in the way of movement, the three players pace up and down, placing and replacing chairs in a series of socially-distanced triangles. For one brief moment, Heisenberg breaks out into a short run.

What we do have are words, lots of them: quantum mechanics, the wave equation, the Copenhagen Interpretation, relativity, uncertainty, complementarity. Heisenberg and Bohr discuss and defend their treatises, their arguments flying back and forth like others may argue the merits of a United versus a City. Between them sits Margrethe, sometime observer, sometime inquisitor, umpire, and arbiter. It is a delightful irony that she is the one who offers up the clearest explanation of any of the physics talk, pragmatically bringing the scientific theories down to earth.

With the excellence of the three actors’ diction and their evident belief in their doctrines, I can convince myself I even understand it all. Arditti’s performance is full of energy, with driving momentum in his attempt to prove that Heisenberg’s motives should not be misunderstood. Sinclair’s twinkly eyed portrayal of Bohr shows us a lot of his charm but, through all the science, we do not see much of the man beneath. Haydn Gwynne emphasises Margrethe’s support as the scientist’s wife. Her loving glances towards Heisenberg as he replaces the son she tragically lost, turn into steely stares as she mistrusts his motives towards her husband.

Heisenberg is primarily remembered for his Uncertainty Principle. And the play exploits the notion that there is so much uncertainty about Heisenberg himself. To what extent did he deliberately slow down any progress in developing a Nazi atomic bomb, or did he just not understand enough of the science? And as we take another look at Heisenberg arriving on Bohr’s doorstep in 1941 is it to gloat over the progress of the German nuclear programme, or to suggest a scientists’ pledge not to work for either side in developing an ultimate weapon of mass destruction?

The most poignant moment of the evening comes as Heisenberg explains hearing about the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima whilst interned at Farm Hall in Godmanchester. This fact is first enjoyed by this audience as a piece of local history, but then the penny drops that all this talk about science is not just theoretical but can lead to such apocalyptic results.

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NICE!

★★★★★

UK Tour

NICE!