Scott Jones
Heading to the Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff to see ‘Nye’ ‘come home’ to Wales just days after the general election was called, I thought to myself what better time for a play about Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan, Welsh Labour politician and health minister when the NHS was created.
And what a play it would be at any time. Inspiring, emotional and funny in equal measure, Michael Sheen is amazing as Nye, with an excellent cast behind him. In particular, Sharon Small who plays Nye’s wife Jennie Lee, a formidable politician in her own right, and Roger Evans as ‘Nye’s man in the Valley’ and friend from childhood Archie Lush who brings the Valleys to the stage by calling Nye ‘butt’.
Performing the entire time in pyjamas, Bevan is shown being taken care of by the NHS itself in his dying days, telling the story of his life and the momentous events he took part in, through his dreams and memories. The lighting, music, sets of hospital beds and curtains, and colours bring it all to life brilliantly.
We see him as a boy confronting a bullying teacher with his classmates, overcoming his stammer to become a great orator, learning of the miners’ library in Tredegar and using it to learn about Marxism, getting elected to the town council and parliament, the war, serving in government, and the harrowing death of his father from ‘black lung’, a miners’ disease.
I was also struck by another scene with his father when he takes Nye as a boy down the pit, where Nye himself would work for eight years, teaching Nye about mining and the coalseam which reminded me of similar stories my coalmining grandfather told me. Incidentally, he also used to tell me about twin brothers he had as a child who died before the NHS of something that probably could have been treated, and also seeing Bevan himself speak on the 1959 general election campaign trail.
At the coalface, Nye’s father David talks about how “one blow” can bring down the whole seam if hit correctly, which is a great parallel of how one blow could bring down a government or change society like the creation of the NHS. Something miners understood from their lives, conditions, community and tradition of working-class struggle.
Nye took this into parliament with him when elected as MP and then into government in 1945. He explicitly said he wanted to “Tredegarise” the country, basing the NHS on the miners’ mutual aid society in Tredegar which provided free, quality healthcare to all, funded by contributions from miners’ pay. The NHS, like Nye’s life, was overwhelmingly influenced by working-class struggle and, while this is shown in shaping Nye, my one criticism would be it’s not shown enough in the creation of the NHS. Well, that and having Neil Kinnock write a short bio of Nye in the programme!
Nye was flawed personally and politically. Jennie Lee’s character hints at the former and scenes of when he ‘filled the doctor’s mouths with gold’ show the latter. But Nye is a great show about his life and legacy, and ends by listing the enduring achievements of the NHS, which we need to fight for now more than ever and Nye is an inspirational reminder of why.
The show’s run at the National Theatre in London and Wales Millenium Centre in Cardiff are now over, but it can still be watched at cinemas via National Theatre live throughout June and I’d definitely recommend doing so.
- See nye.ntlive.com to find where its being shown
- For further reading see: ‘The NHS at 75: can it survive?’
