Finished, Olivier Theatre

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sheen stars in love letter to the NHS.

As a girl of modest means, when I take myself to the theatre I’m usually up in the nosebleeds. Or standing, or with a pole in front of me. Or all three at once! It doesn’t really bother me – as long as I can broadly follow what’s going on, I always have a good time.

But every now and again, I do happen upon a great seat, and it’s all the more special. So it was when I managed to get a front-row spot at the National Theatre to see the much-anticipated Nye. Contrary to the £20 ticket’s description as offering a ‘restricted view’, I was in the perfect position to appreciate the thundering performance of star Michael Sheen. I mention all this as a sort of disclosure in case it has unduly influenced my glowing review, because for me this was a fantastic play.

Sheen stars as Welsh national hero Anuerin ‘Nye’ Bevan, the avid socialist and rebel Labour MP who became the founding father of the beloved (and beleaguered) National Health Service. Other reviewers have accused the play of breezing through this accomplishment too quickly in the final act, but to me this critique rather misses the point of the story. Playwright Tim Price didn’t write his play about the NHS, but instead offers us a biography of an imaginative, community-minded man, delving into his past to explore what drove him to his crowning glory.

In some regards, the way Price has charted Nye’s life story is very conventional; broadly speaking, the story follows him chronologically from childhood to old age (though the whole thing is framed as flashbacks and visions experienced by the dying Nye in an NHS hospital). In every stage of life he is portrayed by Sheen, constantly barefoot and in striped red pyjamas – it is largely Sheen’s performance that tells us how old Nye is from scene to scene. Sheen is fantastic in this regard; he is instantly believable as a small child, drawing sympathy as he battles with his stammer or reaches for his father’s hand. Some of the childhood scenes are slightly on the nose in how they seek to explain Nye’s later socialist tendencies, for example portraying his extreme wonderment at the concept of a library or his schoolmates volunteering to share punishments doled out by a cruel teacher. But there’s more than enough of an engaging through-line to keep us hooked, and plenty of moments of both humour and genuine pathos.

Sheen’s tour de force continues as Nye grows into the man we recognise; boisterous in his political agitating, passionate in his defence of the working class, and even charmingly flirtatious in courting his eventual wife Jennie Lee (an extraordinary political force in her own right). Sheen is matched by a highly capable supporting cast – Sharon Small brings complexity to Jean, so much more than just a dutiful wife, and Roger Evans shows the affection hiding behind the gruff exterior of Nye’s longtime friend and ally Archie Lush. Other standouts are Kezrena James, as Nye’s fiery sister Arianwen (left to keep the home fires burning), and Tony Jayawardena and Stephanie Jacob as Prime Ministers Churchill and Attlee respectively. (As Atlee Jacob wears a bald cap and wheels around the stage behind a motorised desk – as absurdly comic as it sounds and yet strangely appropriate in the more dramatic scenes).

It would be remiss in a review of this play not to mention the staging, which is inventive and highly effective. Credit must go not only to the director Rufus Norris but also the set designer Nicki Mortimer. Clinical green curtains hang from thick black beams, starting as a labyrinthine hospital ward but transforming again and again to become walls, projector screens, and even the House of Commons. I was particularly moved by the way beams of light are used to represent the famous Welsh coal seam, which the young Nye tentatively explores with his father at his side (credit again to Mortimer along with lighting designer Paule Constable). The staging here is engaging and very, very clever, without ever relying on gimmicks or distracting from the moving character study.  

The play isn’t ignorant of Nye’s flaws, though it is eager to forgive him for them in order to paint the man as a hero. Personally, I didn’t take issue with this. Perhaps this attitude simply appeals to my personal politics, though I don’t think anyone could deny the impact of the NHS; we are given some incredible statistics at the end of the play about the decrease in chronic illnesses and infant mortality rates that resulted from its establishment. I think Price is right to celebrate the founding of the NHS not just as the provision of a healthcare service, but as a rare moment in history when a true visionary succeeded in radically shifting our collective approach to a key social issue. By the end of the play, we are truly moved by the story of this man – his achievement and his legacy, but also his humanity and deep compassion. At a time when the NHS seems to be at breaking point, fighting a war on all sides, surely this retelling of its inspiring origins could not be more important.