The National Theatre has generously posted one of this year’s biggest hits, Nye by Tim Price, to its YouTube page. Although this is branded as a “fundraiser”, it is free to access and will also operate as a useful marketing tool ahead of the play’s return to the roster next summer.
The co-production with the Wales Millennium Centre tells the life story of a working class, political outsider with tremendous vision and benefits greatly from an imaginative staging by National’s outgoing Director, Rufus Norris.
It starts with its ending by utilising a common trope, as Michael Sheen’s Aneurin Bevan dreamily views the events of his life from an NHS deathbed, watched over by his two closest companions, Sharon Small as his wife and fellow politician Jennie Lee and Roger Evans portraying friend from childhood, Archie Lush.
Flitting around chronologically, the first half of a 2½-hour performance recorded in front of a live audience covers early days from a stuttering childhood, to cowardice during his father’s slow demise from mining-induced lung disease to the inadvertent discovery of organising abilities and a life’s vocation. That comes during a long period of lay-offs from the mines, when the unemployed were starving and politicians sanctimoniously propped up the owners.
The evening really takes off after the interval, as Nye expands the lessons that he learned in local politics in Tredegar in his new role as member of Parliament for Ebbw Vale. He is not even to be cowed even by Tony Jayawardena’s Winston Churchill, who describes the Welshman as “the most hated man in Britain”. That may not have been an unreasonable reaction, since Bevan tirelessly attacked Churchill throughout the Second World War, despite the imprecations of his fellow party members.
When peace arrived and Attlee came to power, the plucky former miner unexpectedly ceased to be an outsider. Stephanie Jacob in the role of the Prime Minister offers our hero the opportunity to become Minister for Health and Housing, heretofore a guarantee of heartache and unpopularity.
By now a firebrand, who makes speeches as powerful of those of his undervalued but supportive wife, Nye developed a plan to nationalise the health service in the teeth of opposition from Cabinet colleagues led by Herbert Morrison and angry doctors and slowly, using previously disguised depths of tact, ploughs on to a crowning achievement by creating an NHS that is still saving uncounted lives today.
What could easily have been a rather dry but worthy evening’s entertainment is turned into something special thanks to the efforts of Rufus Norris and his creative team, emulating the kinds of impressionistic strategies deployed so well by Rupert Goold for Enron.
While Vicki Mortimer’s set is a paragon of simplicity, it allows for fast pacing and utilises a hospital ward’s privacy curtains to dramatic effect, in part to receive projections. These are supplemented by Paule Constable’s impressive lighting design, dramatically embodying what look like laser beams.
Norris then adds in characteristic choreography from Stephen Hoggart and Jess Williams (and even a production number) to add to the dreamy effect engendered by the morphine used to calm a man dying from another mining-related disease.
It would be fascinating to view this production live on stage, but this film version is highly effective and gives viewers an excellent opportunity to appreciate fine acting from the whole of a very large ensemble, expertly led by Michael Sheen.