The List  
Corrie Mills
12-19 August 2004, Issue 501

Ricocheting between war-torn Serbia and apparently peaceful Sheffield, Nikolina is a sensual assault. Staccato scenes rattle before the audience forcing us to take an unflinching look at the politics of sexual consent. This is a welcome return for nabokov theatre and writer Van Badham, a team brave enough to strip an uncomfortable subject down to its uncomfortable reality. As a Balkan refugee tries to piece her life back together in the North of England, Badham's script cleverly juxtaposes her abused past with her soon to be abused present and raises some unnerving questions in the process. This is intelligently aggressive and caustically witty stuff.