Happy Sunday everyone and I apologise profusely for doing a theatre show two Sundays in a row, but this one only has a couple of weeks left in London (and then a run in Wales) so I’m trying to give you the best chance to get to see it if you want to!
In case you don’t know, the Nye of the title is Anuerin ‘Nye’ Bevan – who was the Health Secretary who created the NHS. The play finds him faced with death and reliving the key moments of his life. Michael Sheen is playing Nye and is turning in an amazing performance as the former miner turned union official then politician and eventually minister. Apart from Sheen and Sharon Small as his wife Jennie Lee, the rest of the cast are all playing a variety of roles as you travel through the moments in his life. I knew the rough outlines of his life story but really that’s not necessary to follow the play – once you’ve got the idea that it’s all going on inside his head (and hopefully the pyjamas are the clue to that).
I’ve put the trailer in if you want a taste, but basically this is a really clever and well put together journey through one man’s life that also outlines what healthcare provision in the UK was like before the NHS and how it was brought about and the resistance it faced. As someone who has only ever known healthcare through the NHS, it is easy to not realise what the reality was before the NHS and this really captures that. It’s 2 hours and forty minutes (including interval) but it really flies by. And you get a rendition of Get Happy (one of my favourite Judy Garland performances) to boot.
It’s on at the National until August 16 and then it moves to the Wales Millennium Centre from the 22 to 30 August.
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
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