Nick Payne

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Constellations (1)

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Nominated: Evening Standard Best Play
 theatre
Starring
  • Sally Hawkins
  • Rafe Spall
    •  
    The Royal Court

    Nick's two-hander explores love, free will and friendship through quantum multiverse theory and honey. 

    Let's go for a drink. I don't know what I'm doing here anyway. One drink. And if you never want to see me again you never have to see me again.

    Constellations premiered at The Royal Court in January 2012 and transferred to the West End in November 2012, where it ran until 5 January 2013, with Rafe Spall and Sally Hawkins reprising the roles of Roland and Marianne.

    Constellations has been produced in France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy, Brazil, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Poland, Belgium, Turkey, Argentina, Japan, and South Korea.

    Media
    Constellations
    Reviews

    beautiful and brilliant Constellations... Seldom has a play felt so exhilarating. ***** Georgina Brown
    Mail on Sunday     Full Review

     funny, tender and startlingly original Caroline McGinn
    Time Out     Full Review

    Nick Payne’s wiry new play Susannah Clapp
    The Observer     Full Review

    Small but perfectly formed

     Claire Alfree
    Metro     Full Review

    The phrase "emotionally satisfying" is rarely seen alongside that of "experimental drama" - which makes Nick Payne's arresting, intelligent new play "Constellations" all the more exciting. David Benedict
    Variety

    I know it’s only January, but if I see a more ingenious, touching and intellectually searching play than Constellations this year, I will count myself very lucky. ***** Charles Spencer
    The Daily Telegraph

    Spry, funny and ultimately very moving... a touchingly original study of a relationship and a meditation on that all too familiar refrain: “if only”

     Sarah Hemming
    Financial Times     Full Review

    Nick Payne has thought many things through before putting them into deceptively simple form... haunting

     Libby Purves
    The Times     Full Review

    Entertaining and deeply moving

     Aleks Sierz
    The Stage

    An absolute delight, a little gem of a play... touching and beautiful Michael Coveney
    What's On Stage

    Not since Mike Bartlett's Cock, so to speak, have I been so exhilarated by a new play... extraordinary Paul Taylor
    The Independent

    Payne is undoubtedly one of the brightest sparks in our playwriting landscape Fiona Mountford
    London Evening Standard

    Subtle... one of Payne’s most moving devices – a deft exploration of the life force and its precariousness

     Carole Woddis
    The Arts Desk

    Emotionally supple and engaging throughout Matt Trueman
    Carousel of Fantasies

    the nearest I’ve come across in ages to a play that feels heaven-sent. Matt Wolf
    The New York Times

    Wondrously supple... The trick the playwright pulls off is to bring a feather-light touch to weighty themes *****

     Maxie Szalwinska
    The Sunday Times     Full Review

    Some plays are worth defying claustrophobia for...  “Constellations” gets into your head and under your skin with an immediacy that sometimes tickles and often hurts.

     Ben Brantley
    New York Times

    I do know the real thing when I see it. And Nick Payne, a playwright previously unknown to me, is at the beginning of a great career. John Lahr
    The New Yorker

    easily the best West End show of the year *****

     Andrzej Lukowski
    Time Out

    Nick Payne’s short, scintillating two-hander... is a bit of a beauty Dominic Maxwell
    The Times     Full Review

    For all its teasing razzle-dazzle, though, it is the human warmth of the writing and acting that ensures the play never slides into tricksiness. Lyn Gardner
    The Guardian

    Nick Payne is a young playwright of rare virtuosity, and Constellations is his most significant achievement to date...The play lasts a little over an hour, but manages to dazzle, delight and dismay. Truly stellar. Henry Hitchings
    The Evenings Standard

    a bit of a beauty. Dominic Maxwell
    The Times

    It’s like a map of the entire unimaginable vista of humanity with a little arrow telling us “You are here”. **** Ian Shuttleworth
    The Financial Times

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