This ITV-drama aired at Channel 4 in the weekly, multicultural program series "Here and Now".
The monologue was commissioned for Channel 4 from Trinidad-born author Mustapha Mantura by Indian born media executive Farrukh Dhondy (Channel 4 Commissioning Editor 1984-97). The year before, Mantura and Dhondy had co-written the much acclaimed TV sitcom "No Problem".
Stephen Bourne, British writer, film and social historian specializing in black culture, writes: "Mustapha Mantura's dramatic monologue Nice [...] provided Norman Beaton with one of his best roles. He played a hapless inmate in one of Her Majesty's prisons and relates his tragicomic story to the camera. This is one of Beaton's finest performances and he should have been nominated for a BAFTA ..." (from Bourne (2001): "Black in the British Frame", Continuum, p. 203).
At the Royal Court Theater ten years earlier, Norman Beaton acted in another work by playwright Mustapha Mantura: "Play Mas", winning Mantura the Evening Standard's Most Promising Playwright Award that year.