It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time, well within living memory, when the NHS just didn’t exist. Unless you had money and privilege or lived in a big city, access to healthcare wasn’t guaranteed, and even if you could get to a hospital or call on a doctor, the cost was often prohibitive – if you couldn’t afford to get well, you didn’t. It’s also hard to believe now that when Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan came up with the idea of the NHS, it wasn’t exactly a resounding success – there was a fair amount of opposition, and it wasn’t until just ten days before its launch on 5th July 1948 that the doctors, who had been holding out, agreed to join the National Health Service. Talk about a close call. And talk about a great moment in history.  And that’s precisely what Nye, written by Tim Price, directed by Rufus Norris, and starring Michael Sheen as Nye Bevan, does. It talks about that great moment in history, but it also shows the audience what led to it, and that’s what makes this play so much more than a history lesson. 

The play is a set of flashbacks, memories, and dreams that Nye has while taking morphine after undergoing an operation in his own beloved NHS during which it was found he had terminal stomach cancer. The man is dying, and his life flashes before him in a weird and wonderful, sometimes entirely surreal, way.  The surreal nature of Nye is where it really excels – there’s a bizarre but rather wonderful song and dance number part-way through that comes out of nowhere and disappears again just as quickly – and the play could do with more of that strangeness. It teeters on the edge of weird, but that’s the only time it really dives headfirst in, and if it could have committed to that dreamlike feeling from beginning to end, it probably would have edged towards being brilliant. As it is, it’s great, but it could have been more. Bevan is dreaming so anything can happen, but it doesn’t push the boundaries far enough. 

The performances, however, are spectacular. Michael Sheen as Nye is a powerful combination of naivety and ambition, and you certainly get the feeling that he really did just want to help people – perhaps he wasn’t the best man in the world when it came to his personal life, but in terms of what he managed to give the nation, he was a hero, and Sheen’s flawed protagonist offers that heroic slice of humanity up perfectly.  Everyone in the cast was superb, and Sharon Small as Jennie Lee, Bevan’s wife and politician in her own right, gave a subtly beautiful performance, with just the right amount of strength mixed with pathos that took you with her on her journey from fear to anger to acceptance. Roger Evans plays Archie Lush, Nye’s childhood friend who sticks with him through thick and thin and who is with him at the end, and he manages to showcase a wide range of talent, which includes some fantastic comic moments that really do lift the mood. 

The set design by Vicki Mortimer is also worth a mention. It makes great use of NHS hospital beds and the green hospital curtains many, if not all, of us have been behind at one time or another. They’re used to great effect and are pulled this way or that to create various different rooms, places, and even times. This, combined with Paule Constable’s evocative lighting and Jon Driscoll’s clever projections create a strange, whimsical, sometimes grotesque world where Nye Bevan’s ideas could finally come to life. 

Nye tells an important story about an important man, and it’s close to being excellent. The surreal elements are needed (no matter how much you might love the NHS, all that politics and arguing could become a bit dry), but it doesn’t lean heavily enough into that conceit, and that’s where it misses a trick.

*** Three Stars

Reviewed by Lisamarie Lamb

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