Nye is a flashback play that drags you head-first into the morphine cloudy mind of Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh Minister of Health who birthed the National Health Service.
In the vast Olivier theatre you first see Michael Sheen propped in a hospital bed, striped pyjamas glowing under cold lamps. The year is 1960; Bevan is dying inside his own creation. Each time nurses adjust his drip he slips into another pocket of memory. A coal seam becomes a library, a council chamber turns into a seaside pier show, the Commons rises from a rain of green curtains. The plot tracks him from Tredegar schoolboy with a stammer to rebel union organiser, from landslide Labour victory to Cabinet brawl over pay beds, ending with the launch of the NHS and the lonely aftermath.
Sheen is extraordinary. He never leaves the stage nor changes costume yet seems to age thirty years in front of you. One moment he is an awkward lad discovering a dictionary; next he storms the Commons hurling statistics like grenades at Winston Churchill. During a dream duet he croons Get Happy with nurses twirling IV poles like chorus girls.
Sharon Small plays Jennie Lee with brisk intelligence and simmering hurt. Stephanie Jacob glides as Clement Attlee on a motorised desk, part mandarin part gadget joke. Tony Jayawardena relishes Churchill, eyes glittering behind cigar smoke. Vicki Mortimer surrounds them with hospital curtains that whip open to reveal mines, streets and those green benches. Jon Driscoll projects headlines onto the fabric so history feels printed on washable linen. Steven Hoggett’s movement turns parliamentary gossip into a scuttling dance.
Price’s script is fond of jokes yet never forgets the moral. When Bevan vows to make doctors the best paid workers the stalls reply with hollow laughter. References to two tier care and strikes land without forced topical name checking; you connect the dots yourself. Beneath the jokes beats a serious warning about institutions we take for granted. The show is sentimental but sentiment is credible when rooted in graft and loss.
Jessica Hung Han Yun’s lighting scheme deserves its own footnote. She bathes the ward in antiseptic white then snaps to coal pit amber, making each transition feel like an intake of breath. Mark Henderson uses surgical lamps that descend like interrogation suns, forcing you to confront the cost of political ambition. Paule Constable’s sound rig hidden above the drum seeds the auditorium with distant sirens and whispered Welsh lullabies so you feel the world beyond the stage pressing inward.
Comparisons pop up like sparklers. There is the parliamentary bounce of James Graham’s This House, the dream delirium of Dennis Potter’s Singing Detective, the brassy civic pride of Danny Boyle’s Olympic ceremony.
There are some weaknesses. Doctors verge on pantomime villains, Herbert Morrison’s feud is blink and gone, Jennie’s career remains a footnote. These shortcuts may irk specialists but they keep the engine moving and the crowd engaged. But overall, this is an outstanding production, as you would expect from the National Theatre.