Nicole Kidman’s triumphant return to West End stage

More than 17 years after she last trod the boards in the West End, Nicole Kidman has made a triumphant return to the London stage with a standing ovation for the first night of her new play.

“I’m just hoping I’ll get on stage and it will all come together”, Nicole told DailyMail.co.uk, “No re-takes, no re-shoots, no safety nets”. The role was a challenging one, says Kidman: “I think she was a product of that era”.

Unlike Watson, Crick and Wilkins, Franklin never received the Nobel prize for her discoveries because the award was made in 1962, four years after she had died from cancer.

Photograph 51 follows Rosalind Franklin (Kidman).

Photograph 51 reunites her with director Michael Grandage, following their work on the film Genius about the life of American literary talent spotter and editor Max Perkins. Ziegler’s play looks at the woman who cracked DNA and asks what is sacrificed in the pursuit of science, love and a place in history.

Nicole Kidman displayed her ageless beauty as she stepped out of the Noel Coward Theatre following her performance in “Photograph 51”.

“In every way she was a scientific giant”. Fellow scientist Wilkins, who had nicknamed her “The Dark Lady”, removed the photo without her knowledge or permission and took it to show Watson and Crick. “Nicole Kidman was superb!”

“The viewers have been massively beneficiant and the standard of listening was profound”.

“She liked to work alone; she was fastidious, meticulous; she had extraordinary abilities mathematically and she was a superb biochemist, there’s no doubt about that”. He was nonetheless alive once I was first despatched the play and he knew all about Rosalind Franklin.

“This is my way of acknowledging him and acknowledging people in science who quietly go about their work and aren’t acknowledged a lot of the time”.

The play, produced by the Michael Grandage Company, runs until November 21.