Also in 1970 Nelson returned to Broadway in the lead role in Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen, a musical adaptation of The Teahouse of the August Moon. It was a critical and commercial disaster, closing after only 19 performances. After settling in England in 1971, he played opposite Cleo Laine in "Showboat" and "Colette" on the West End stage, and appeared in "Annie" and "42nd Street." In 1974, he played a leading role in the highly successful revue Cole at London's Mermaid Theatre. In 1985 he played sinister nuclear Entrepreneur Jerry Grogan in Edge of Darkness, the seminal BBC thriller series written by Troy Kennedy Martin, and had roles in the Clive Barker horror films Hellraiser (1987) and Nightbreed (1990).