COMING HOME: Nicole-Lily Baisden, soon to be starring in Anything Goes at the Barbican Centre

Pocket Size Theatre and Liza Heinrichs (Captured by Liz) have teamed up again and created our new series 'Coming Home'. In this new piece, we look at the reopening of Theatres in London and around the country and celebrate our industry coming back. We got together some performers who will be some of the first to return to theatres and created this piece to bring some positivity to the theatre industry which has been through one of the toughest years in our lifetime. Whilst it is important to acknowledge the hardships we've all gone through, it's important we pull together as a community and celebrate our beloved industry finally coming back! 

Nicole-Lily Baisden only graduated from Arts Educational Schools in 2019 and pretty much went straight into her first professional job, as she played Nabulungi in the original UK & International touring production of The Book of Mormon. The tour opened in June 2019, so they had a reasonable run before the theatres shut down but still, unfortunately, didn’t fulfil the full list of touring dates they had prepared themselves for. 

Nicole-Lily has recently been announced as playing the role of Hope Harcourt in the London revival of Anything Goes at the Barbican, featuring a full star line up! She’ll be starring alongside the likes of Broadway legend Sutton Foster, Robert Lindsay, Felicity Kendal and Gary Wilmot as well as West End regulars Samuel Edwards, Haydn Oakley and Carly Mercedes Dyer. 

The Corona Diaries: Nicole-Lily Baisden

These recent times have been some of the hardest challenges we've faced and as a community, it hit us pretty hard. However during these difficult times, here at Pocket Size Theatre, we wanted to spread a little positivity and share some peoples experiences because we are all in this together. Each day we'll be speaking to our friends in the industry to share their experiences with you all so take a read and see how people are getting through these hard times. 

Let's stick together, share the love and get through this as a community! 

*Some information mentioned in this article may be out of date due to the progress of the current situation. Please keep that in mind when reading*

Nicole-Lily Baisden is currently in the UK & International tour of The Book of Mormon, playing the role of Nabulungi, this is her professional stage debut since leaving Arts Educational. 

On Monday 16th March 2020, The Society of London Theatre announced the closure of all Theatres in London. This followed suit with regional venues. Where were you when you found out and what was your initial reaction? 

I’m currently touring with the Book of Mormon so we were in Birmingham at the time. I had taken a few days off the show, planning on going back the Tuesday. I got a call from my cast mate saying they got to warm up and were told that evenings performance and all other performances were cancelled until further notice! I was definitely in shock, and as I saw tweets and announcements that shows all over the UK were closing I really couldn’t believe it. Theatre has always been such a huge part of my life so to see it all come to a halt so quickly broke my heart! I spent most of the night thinking about friends of mine that had exciting things coming up or had just started something new. It was bizarre! 

Can you tell us anything productive you’ve been doing?

If I’m honest I’ve probably done more exercise in the past 3 weeks than I have in a while because there are so many classes on offer. My garden has turned into my own studio! I’ve spent a lot of time reading and as I’ve moved back home it’s given me time to properly catch up with my mum and dad after being away for nearly a year. Also, the Livestream concerts have been giving me my stagey fix over the past few weeks.