{"id":849591,"date":"2026-03-25T15:35:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/849591\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T15:35:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T15:35:16","slug":"the-team-behind-new-welsh-play-nice-things-in-their-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/849591\/","title":{"rendered":"The team behind new Welsh play Nice Things, in their words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer Luke Hereford, director Izzy Rabey and actors Reece Connolly and Geraint Rhys Edwards bring an untold queer love story to the stage with the theatre production of Nice Things. Amy Ford spoke to all four, ahead of the play opening in April.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luke Hereford (Nice Things writer\/producer):<\/strong> A breakup inspired this play\u2026 like all the best things. I mean, not entirely \u2013 it\u2019s spurred on by a breakup. I did kind of write it in a post-breakup rage, but it\u2019s become much more than that. I feel like there\u2019s loads and loads of plays like this \u2013 domestic, two-handed relationship plays \u2013 but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen one about nonbinary people. So that\u2019s kind of what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

Izzy Rabey (director):<\/strong> So often, queer plays are set against a straight world. What makes this play so different is it\u2019s about queer issues within a gay world. For me, that makes it really special and refreshing, because so often our stories are pitted against heteronormativity, and that\u2019s not what this play is.<\/p>\n

Geraint Rhys Edwards (actor):<\/strong> Not that this play was ever going to be preachy, but I think people who are cis, and who aren\u2019t from a queer community, may think this play will be preaching about how to be, you know? But it\u2019s not. It\u2019s just about real life \u2013 heartbreak, and a journey through coming out \u2013 and it\u2019s honest.<\/p>\n

Izzy:<\/strong> For me, the breakup scene [in Nice Things] is extraordinary, both in terms of the writing, but also how these two perform. There\u2019s something so real about it. As a director, I\u2019m so sucked in to the chemistry between these two as actors \u2013 it\u2019s so exciting to watch. They\u2019re really screaming at each other at one point, and then it\u2019s really quiet. It\u2019s like an orchestral piece of a breakup, and I really see it like a piece of music, which makes it really beautiful.<\/p>\n

\"LukeLuke Hereford<\/p>\n

Reece Connolly (actor):<\/strong> The audience have to be very engaged and very attentive and put a lot of work in as well, in terms of making their own assumptions and looking at where we are in this relationship. At the same time, it doesn\u2019t necessarily matter if they don\u2019t know exactly, because the play has a sort of dream logic to it. It feels sometimes like we\u2019re watching a montage play out in real time, and we\u2019re looking back retrospectively on this relationship. It has a chronology all of its own. I think that will be really interesting for an audience to watch\u2026 and for us as performers, obviously it\u2019s like, here we go!<\/p>\n

Luke:<\/strong> I\u2019m also a drag queen<\/a>, so I have my foot in the door of that part of the queer culture in Wales. I think it\u2019s very rare that those that the queer scene meet the artistic scene, within Wales; I don\u2019t really know any other nonbinary Welsh theatre makers, apart from Juliette Manon<\/a>. In the Welsh artistic scene, there\u2019s not really any queer work happening, with the exception of great things in cabaret. It would be really lovely to see the Sherman taking a chance on a main stage queer musical made by some Welsh queer artists.<\/p>\n

Nice Things: A Queer Love Story opens in the Pleasance Theatre, London (Wed 1-Sat 4 Apr) and is then at The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol (Mon 13 + Tue 14) and Porter\u2019s, Cardiff (Wed 22-Sat 25).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tickets: \u00a310-\u00a314. Info: London<\/a> \/ Bristol<\/a> \/ Cardiff<\/a><\/p>\n

words AMY FORD<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer Luke Hereford, director Izzy Rabey and actors Reece Connolly and Geraint Rhys Edwards bring an untold queer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[229367,381,748,242558,242559,393,242560,4884,242561,242562,242563,242564,242565,242566,16,15,242567],"class_list":{"0":"post-849591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-amy-ford","9":"tag-bristol","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-buzz-stage-interview","12":"tag-buzz-theatre-interview","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-geraint-rhys-edwards","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-izzy-rabey","17":"tag-luke-hereford","18":"tag-nice-things","19":"tag-pleasance-theatre","20":"tag-porters-cardiff","21":"tag-reece-connolly","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wardrobe-theatre"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116290553652317908","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}