This life story begins at the end, with Aneurin “Nye” Bevan in a hospital bed, befittingly for the visionary political colossus who created Britain’s National Health Service in 1948.
As Bevan (Michael Sheen) is creeping towards death, flashbacks of memory bring a hallucinatory quality reminiscent of The Singing Detective: beds and ward curtains are woven into scenes of his childhood as a Welsh miner’s son and a stammering schoolboy bullied by his headteacher. We follow his rise from local council politics to the House of Commons and high office under Clement Attlee (Stephanie Jacob, slightly sinister in a bald wig). Doctors and nurses morph into a bevy of characters from his past, the cast juggling this multiplicity adeptly, and there is a surreal song and dance breakout number as, one presumes, Bevan’s morphine kicks in.
In a production written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris, there is some inspired stagecraft as the hospital curtains of Vicki Mortimer’s ingenious set swish to reveal debating chambers and libraries. But the narrative is too long-reaching and schematic, its extensively researched material not fully absorbed dramatically.
Co-produced with Wales Millennium Centre and running at over two and a half hours, Nye is a too full, yet too simplified, survey of the personal and political elements in Bevan’s world, with some high-pitched moments accompanied by syrupy music.
Bevan is presented as a renegade, Jeremy Corbyn-like figure of his day: both a thorn in the side of Winston Churchill (impersonated well by Tony Jayawardena) and the Labour party. There are council meetings, parliamentary debates, his first meeting with his wife, Jennie Lee (Sharon Small), the war and its aftermath. So much is packed in that the momentous invention of the NHS is tackled, as if in summary, in the last half hour.
Only then do we hear how the nation’s doctors were heavily opposed to Bevan’s proposition. There are exchanges on a screen with an army of hostile medics who look like Minority Report holograms, but we whizz past this opposition, which has enough in-built conflict to be worthy of is own full-length drama.
Sheen (grey helmet hair, chequered pyjamas) is well cast for his natural charm. He brings a curious fey playfulness and vulnerability but does not plumb the depths of his commanding character – or perhaps the busy script simply does not allow it. However, Bevan’s limitations as a son to his dying father bring some emotional mileage as he is too busy caring for the nation’s wellbeing to be there for him.
Small is not given much room for manoeuvre either, and Lee is used for exposition purposes rather than dramatic ones. She talks of her open marriage, describing Bevan as a “rutting stag”, which sits at odds with the cutely pyjama-clad man on stage. There are brief reflections on navigations between her career as Westminster’s youngest MP – and one of only five women – and her marriage. Both she and Bevan hailed from working-class backgrounds and there is a moment when he talks about “impostor syndrome” in this hallowed space. She is unequivocal in her outsider status: “That’s why this place needs us.” Despite these feisty lines, she remains flat, which seems a crime – her character could have been far richer.
Nye is still a vital play because Bevan is a vital man of British history. It succeeds in showing us just how high the hurdles he faced were. When he describes prewar healthcare – one service for the rich, one for the poor – it rings of today’s two-tiered system. “I want to give you your dignity,” he says, as the NHS launches. It is a rousing moment yet contains a terrible, tragic irony, given what is coming to pass with his precious legacy.
At the Olivier theatre, National Theatre, London, until 11 May. Then at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, 18 May-1 June.
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