Reviews:
"Adapted and performed by Nick Sandys - actor, director of both theater and opera, fight choreographer and teacher, who has served as the inspired artistic director of Remy Bumppo since 2012 - the production takes full advantage of his British heritage, literary flair and vocal and facial plasticity. And Sandys brings the work to vivid life in a virtuosic 90 minutes...
Sandys (whose earlier virtual endeavor this year was a sublime recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnets), does an impeccable job of bringing to life every character (including Dickens himself), as well as the various locations so brilliantly conjured by the author. And he makes the streets, and chimes, and times of day and night palpable through nothing more than his facial expressions and a multitude of voices. In the process, he also demonstrates that this story, now nearly two centuries old, is in many ways of the moment." - WTTW
"Bedecked in period garb, Nick's one-man presentation is absolutely flawless. He IS Charles Dickens, the popular writer and showman, giving a public reading of his newly-published story...." - ChicagoTheaterReview.com
"..the streaming virtual production Bumppo's offering this season is a humdinger.... Sandys's performance is vocally nimble and endearing--he knows how to slice the Dickens ham into digestible portions, and goes big (including extreme from-below close-ups) when embodying various aldermen and other odious oligarchs, yet he also knows that the quiet moments of epiphany don't need to be oversold." - Chicago Reader
"Remy Bumppo Theatre Company['s] sometimes devastating one-man production of Dickens’ follow-up seasonal novella, The Chimes, adapted by and starring Nick Sandys in a brilliant performance as multiple characters.... The term “tour de force” is overused in criticism, but it feels as if it were invented to describe Sandys in this play. Shot with a single camera, with its star remaining close to a music stand from which he reads his script, this production nonetheless provides plenty of space for him to fully realize every one of the many characters we meet along Trotty’s journey. He takes every opportunity to explore them through voice, stance, facial expression, and movement, at times bringing his face almost fully up to the camera’s lens to highlight the pompousness of some characters or the dark, musical undertones of the bells’ supernatural inhabitants, all sharply in contrast to the sweet, vulnerable, and impressionable Trotty. It is a remarkable performance in every way." - ChicagoOnStage.com
"Adapted and performed by Nick Sandys - actor, director of both theater and opera, fight choreographer and teacher, who has served as the inspired artistic director of Remy Bumppo since 2012 - the production takes full advantage of his British heritage, literary flair and vocal and facial plasticity. And Sandys brings the work to vivid life in a virtuosic 90 minutes...
Sandys (whose earlier virtual endeavor this year was a sublime recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnets), does an impeccable job of bringing to life every character (including Dickens himself), as well as the various locations so brilliantly conjured by the author. And he makes the streets, and chimes, and times of day and night palpable through nothing more than his facial expressions and a multitude of voices. In the process, he also demonstrates that this story, now nearly two centuries old, is in many ways of the moment." - WTTW
"Bedecked in period garb, Nick's one-man presentation is absolutely flawless. He IS Charles Dickens, the popular writer and showman, giving a public reading of his newly-published story...." - ChicagoTheaterReview.com
"..the streaming virtual production Bumppo's offering this season is a humdinger.... Sandys's performance is vocally nimble and endearing--he knows how to slice the Dickens ham into digestible portions, and goes big (including extreme from-below close-ups) when embodying various aldermen and other odious oligarchs, yet he also knows that the quiet moments of epiphany don't need to be oversold." - Chicago Reader
"Remy Bumppo Theatre Company['s] sometimes devastating one-man production of Dickens’ follow-up seasonal novella, The Chimes, adapted by and starring Nick Sandys in a brilliant performance as multiple characters.... The term “tour de force” is overused in criticism, but it feels as if it were invented to describe Sandys in this play. Shot with a single camera, with its star remaining close to a music stand from which he reads his script, this production nonetheless provides plenty of space for him to fully realize every one of the many characters we meet along Trotty’s journey. He takes every opportunity to explore them through voice, stance, facial expression, and movement, at times bringing his face almost fully up to the camera’s lens to highlight the pompousness of some characters or the dark, musical undertones of the bells’ supernatural inhabitants, all sharply in contrast to the sweet, vulnerable, and impressionable Trotty. It is a remarkable performance in every way." - ChicagoOnStage.com