It is May 1945. World War Two is finally over and Britain is in tatters, still literally shellshocked but on the brink of an election which gives everyone some hope for the future. Churchill has seen the country through the war, but what is needed now is ‘Change’. Now where have I heard that recently?
Labour had a landslide victory, and this play is the story of the people who were now in charge and attempting to shape and improve the lives and prospects of those who were left.
There were many involved, most particularly Nye Bevan, but the main protagonist in this play is Ellen Wilkinson, known as Red Ellen due to her auburn hair and her communist beliefs, and played with such passionate conviction, determination and forcefulness by Clare Burt that I fear for her health suffering, as did that of her character, although not quite for the same reasons.
Clement Attlee (Andrew Woodall) was Prime Minister at the time, and he was credited with enlarging and improving social services and creating the National Health Service, wearing out himself in the process and endangering his health—according to his loving wife—but the true hero was Nye Bevan (superb depiction of the man from Richard Harrington) whose dream was to have a health service which was free at the point of need, rather than depending on the ability to pay, and available to everyone.
The medical profession fought back, having enjoyed their profitable lifestyle, but Bevan was determined to succeed, although it took him over three years and entailed a lot of arguments, in many of which, particularly in Cabinet meetings, the shouting reached fever pitch. Herbert Morrison, who had organised the Labour election campaign and was of the opinion that he ought to be next in line for PM, believed that local councils were the best to run any health campaign, and Churchill was dead against a national health service. Eventually, and thankfully, it came to pass.
There is a little light humour here and there, mainly between Ellen and Morrison (Reece Dinsdale) with their brief love affair, and a ‘party’ with food and drink that was for ‘work’ glossed over very quickly, but it is in the hotel bedroom where the two are enjoying each other's company that the jokes and witty comments are heard, although overall, the play is extremely interesting and engaging, letting us into a little of the life of a most amazing woman, one whose story, I think, ought to be told in full.
The ending is strange—after so many factual comments on the lives of the people involved, it wanders into the surreal with a ghostly Churchill giving his opinion of the general public and a sort of eulogy on Ellen Wilkinson, whom he greatly admired—all as the snow fell in the coldest winter the country had ever known.