The reviews are in for NINA, the debut play by director Caroline Williams, which she co-directs with Deborah Pearson at Battersea Arts Centre. Four actresses, played by Maya Bartley O’Dea, Samantha Begeman, Nina Bowers and Gemma Barnett, audition to play Nina in an experimental The Seagull for a celebrated and manipulative director, played by Rowan Polonski. The notices are strong across the board. Critics agree on the performances and on the play’s anger at how the industry treats actresses; where they differ is on how well its absurd, metatheatrical swerves serve the story.
The verdict: seven reviews so far, all of them rated: two five-star notices, four four-star and one three-star, an average of 4.1 out of 5. Every critic praises the performances, with Samantha Begeman and Nina Bowers named most often. The differences are of degree: a couple of critics find the more absurd turns muddy the story, and one wanted more of the play’s chaos and less conventional storytelling.
What are critics saying about NINA?
LondonTheatre1
“A mesmerising psychological exploration of power, control and manipulative motions that keeps you hooked to the very end”
Reviewer: Sascha Cooper
One of two five-star notices. Sascha Cooper admires a simple, flexible set and finds that the evening, played without an interval, builds menace at exactly the right pace.
“…each of these women delivered a performance that was strong, vulnerable, dynamic and extraordinarily brave.”
The review singles out Rowan Polonski’s charming, controlling director Goran and Joseph Payne’s writer Tim, who is drawn into Goran’s games despite himself.
Plays International
Reviewer: Tom Bolton
Tom Bolton welcomes a play that returns to questions about how women experience male power which, he argues, have slipped out of wider discussion since the #MeToo era.
“NINA is based around a set of stellar performances.”
He picks out Samantha Begeman’s journey as Nina 02 and an equally impressive Nina Bowers, and notes that the writer’s programme note says everything shown really happened, to her or to friends.
Time Out
“Smart metatheatrical drama about four actresses auditioning for a production of The Seagull”
Reviewer: Isobel Lewis
Isobel Lewis says the play demands so much thought that whether she enjoyed it felt like the wrong question: it left her angry and moved, and also laughing more than she had in a theatre for some time.
“As a commentary on the brutality of the acting world and creep of male power, Nina is up there with the best.”
She praises Caroline Williams’s wry script for mocking the theatre world it belongs to, and calls Begeman and Bowers heartrending.
The Reviews Hub
“Fiction becomes reality for Chekhov’s Nina”
Reviewer: Richard Maguire
Richard Maguire finds the power games between male director and actresses both funny and absurd, with each audition pushing further than the last.
“NINA offers a rich exploration of The Seagull by rewarding those familiar with the original.”
He adds that the metatheatrical frame works for newcomers too, showing how easily the line between fiction and reality becomes a means of control.
A Young(ish) Perspective
“NINA, on at Battersea Arts Centre through 24 October, accomplishes what so many modern plays cannot: repurposes a well-mined classic into something genuinely relevant to contemporary audiences”
Reviewer: Jessica Steans-Gail
Jessica Steans-Gail praises a play that is not afraid to break a classic apart and build something new, and calls its picture of slow-creeping manipulation its greatest strength.
“The most memorable parts of NINA are its humour and its fantastic performances”
Her one caution is that some turns towards surrealism blur the clarity and are likely to divide audiences.
Read Jessica Steans-Gail’s full review at A Young(ish) Perspective
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: Beatriz Ferreira
Beatriz Ferreira calls the staging brave, impulsive and irreverent, and thinks the risks mostly pay off, with Begeman outstanding and Bowers equally compelling.
“Bold, playful and deliberately unpredictable, it embraces the possibilities of experimental theatre”
She does find that the more absurd flourishes sometimes cost the story its clarity.
Everything Theatre
“A fierce exploration of acting and misogyny featuring fabulous performances, theatrical chaos and dark comedy that’s perhaps overly constrained by conventional storytelling”
Reviewer: Mike Carter
Mike Carter loved the chaotic collapse of the play-within-a-play and the Grand Guignol finale, and calls Bowers magnetic.
“The good news is the barnstorming performances are worth the ticket price alone.”
His reservations are the more ordinary stretches between those set pieces, and a closing chat-show scene he found an unimaginative way to tie up the story.
For more on the production, see our first look at NINA, and our review roundups for Fences at the Lyric Hammersmith and The Haunting of Hill House at Richmond Theatre.
NINA runs at Battersea Arts Centre until 24 October 2026.
