By Kim Jones
If ever there was a poignant time to be reminded about how Aneurin (Nye) Bevan, the Tredegar-born socialist who transformed Britain’s healthcare system and created the NHS, it’s now; when we see the service he battled so hard to implement suffer from lack of funding – and how a two-tier health system, which he so railed against, one for the rich and one for the poor, threatens to return.
Rousing, rebellious and passionate but playing the character at times with a vulnerability that’s incredibly touching, Michale Sheen is, of course, perfect as Nye.
Lying in a hospital bed, being cared for by the service he created, the play opens as Nye has just woken up from an operation to remove a stomach ulcer, unaware that he actually has cancer.
Subsequently pumped up with morphine, we witness Nye drifting between reality and revisiting the defining moments in his life – all the while barefoot and dressed in a pair of burgundy striped pyjamas. Though that doesn’t seem to matter at all..
First we see him as a child, with a stutter that makes him the brunt of his headmaster’s bullying – only to be protected by the collective support of his classmates. Then he’s taken to the Tredegar Workmen’s Institute Library by his best pal Archie Lush (played charmingly by Roger Evans) where he devours books and literature, searching to find alternative words to the ones that make him stutter.
The glorious fast-moving action in Tim Price’s play then takes us through Nye’s life – eventually becoming a labour MP, marrying fellow trailblazing MP Jennie Lee (the superb Sharon Small), daring to criticise Winston Churchill (excellently played by Tony Jayawardena) during World War 2, tirelessly fighting for the rights and well-being of the poor and unemployed and eventually challenging the doctors, and ‘Tredegarising’ the nation (inspired by the town’s Medical Aid Society) to become part of the new healthcare system.
The ensemble is faultless, playing multiple roles and acting as a choreographed backdrop to the action throughout. And the staging is clever – green hospital curtains are ever-present, morphing into a parliamentary debating chamber, a library, a public bar and more. The lighting lends drama particularly in a scene where Nye’s father takes him down the pit to teach him how to feel for the coal seam.
There’s lots to laugh about in this play – Nye’s childish delight at getting books for free at the library, plus a surprising and bizarre rendition of ‘get happy’ as the stage transforms into a musical extravaganza. But there’s lots to cry about too. Not least as Nye holds his father as he dies from pneumoconiosis or “black lung disease.” And especially when Nye asks at the end of the play ‘Did I look after you? Did I look after you all?’
Just like Nye, Sheen and the rest of the cast looked after us, the audience, superbly in this show, and the play looked after Nye’s story impeccably too. Thank you!
Nye is showing at Wales Millennium Centre until June 1 – tickets here
Pictures by Johann Persson