Jon Driscoll

Nye: National Theatre Live

27/04/24

Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh

National Theatre Live has chosen a propitious subject for its hundredth project. 

Nye, written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris, is the story of Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, the Labour MP who conceived and delivered the National Health Service. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that beyond that one incredible achievement, I have no other knowledge of the man’s life, so this feels like the perfect time to find out more about him.

When we first encounter Nye (Michael Sheen), he’s a patient in one of the National Health hospitals he built. Accompanied by his ever-protective wife, Jennie (Sharon Small), and his best friend, Archie (Roger Evans), Nye has just undergone a routine operation for a stomach ulcer but it turns out there’s something much more serious causing the awful pains in his gut. Zonked out on drugs and hallucinating, his hospital bed takes on a magic carpet-like ability to whisk him back down the years to revisit key scenes in his life.

Vicki Mortimer’s ingenious set design is mostly achieved using curtains. They sweep from side to side, they descend from on high and sometimes they even rise magisterially from the floor, to alternatively create new spaces and reveal hidden depths within the Olivier’s expansive stage. Though Sheen remains dressed in his striped pyjamas throughout, there’s never any doubt as to where (and when) a particular memory is located. 

We see Nye in childhood, afflicted by a stutter and brutalised by a sadistic teacher, but uniting his classmates in a show of defiance. We see him and Archie as older children, discovering the wonders of a library where… unbelievably…books can be borrowed and read – for free! And we see an older Nye, a fledgling politician now, arguing with his sister, Arianwen (Kezrena James), over the care of their father, David (Rhodri Meiler), a former miner succumbing to a slow and horrible death from black lung.

Later, Nye crosses swords with a bombastic Winston Churchill (Tony Jayawardena), who is violently opposed to handing out free health care to the oiks. Then, under a new Labour government, he accepts an offer from Clement Attlee (Stephanie Jacob, silently gliding around the stage behind a desk like a Doctor Who villain) to become Minister for Health – and Housing.

If certain elements of Nye’s life have been simplified for dramatic purposes (his huge collection of siblings is whittled down to a single sister, for instance), it matters little. The central premise of this story is so huge that it can’t be overburdened with detail.

Sheen is terrific in the central role, giving Nye an understated and strangely vulnerable charm. Small is also marvellous as the firebrand, Jennie Lee – so good in fact that she should perhaps be given a little more to do, but that’s only a niggle. A sprightly rendition of Get Happy with Sheen singing and dancing his way around a busy hospital ward conveys Nye’s playful, engaging nature.

I love Jon Driscoll’s projection design, which utilises cinematic techniques. A key scene, depicting the death toll on the UK population after the end of the war, features hordes of monochromatic figures shambling helplessly towards the camera, only to morph into actual actors, appearing as if by magic, pleading for our help. Another sequence has Nye being scrutinised by the medical profession, scores of masked faces staring blankly at him across an abyss of prejudice. Who is this upstart who wants to change everything?

The play’s climax is almost unbearably poignant and I’m left sitting in the semi-darkness, tears in my eyes, marvelling at the sheer scale of one man’s glorious ambition. It seems particularly significant that. as I write this, a Tory government (which has spent so much time and effort trying to dismantle Aneurin Bevan’s wonderful achievement) looks set to be finally given its marching orders. Please let that happen!

Nye will doubtless be given other screenings soon, so keep an eye out for more opportunities if you missed it this time around. This is National Theatre Live at its most creative and enjoyable.

4.7 stars

Philip Caveney

Small Island

19/06/20

National Theatre Live

Anyone who’s still clinging to the notion that #BLM protests are not needed in the UK would do well to watch this latest screening from the National Theatre, and remind themselves of the shameful way black British subjects from Caribbean countries have been treated here.

Andrea Levy’s novel, adapted for the stage by Helen Edmundson, is set in the 1940s, so does not directly address the 2018 Windrush scandal – where at least eighty-three people were wrongly deported – but it does show very clearly how they came to be here in the first place, encouraged to embrace their Britishness by fighting for ‘their’ country in the war, then helping to rebuild a battered Britain afterwards. ‘Used’ is the first word that comes to mind. ‘Abused’ is the second.

The play, directed by Rufus Norris, is at once an expansive, epic sweep of a project, and a deeply intimate portrayal of three people, cast adrift and then brought together, an intricate web linking their lives.

Leah Harvey is Hortense, a prim, ambitious Jamaican school teacher, desperate to escape the confines of her upbringing and live amongst the china tea cups and cream teas that define Britain for her. The love of her life is her ‘cousin’ Michael (CJ Beckford), but he doesn’t feel the same way about her. Spurned, Hortense realises that, by paying for his passage to England,  she can persuade RAF airman Gilbert (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) to marry her, and offer her the life she dreams of.

But when she arrives in London, Hortense is horrified to discover that their accommodation is a tiny room in a rundown boarding house, that she is subjected daily to the most appalling racism, and that no one will employ her as a teacher, or even recognise the qualifications she’s worked so hard to acquire. The landlady, Queenie (Aisling Loftus), is their one ally, but even her support seems less assured when her bigoted husband, Bernard (Andrew Rothney), finally returns home from the war.

The acting from all is superb, although it is Harvey’s performance that lingers in the memory, a study in rigid reserve and masked disappointment.

I love Katrina Lindsay’s set design, which is perfectly complemented by Jon Driscoll’s projections, making full use of the enormous Olivier stage. The storm scenes in particular seem immersive, and the size of the Windrush boat (and thus the scale of the ensuing scandal) is cleverly conveyed.

The first act is more complex than the first, cutting between countries and characters, but we always know exactly where we are, and all the disparate strands are brought together skilfully in a more cohesive second act.

This is a timely release from the National Theatre, and reinforces the need for more BAME representation in the arts.

You have until next Thursday to watch it.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield