Nye - NT Olivier / Wales Millennium / YouTube

I'm a little jealous of those who got to see Michael Sheen. Having watched the short clip of him on the cinema trailer, I can see how his take on Bevan might have made me more appreciative of the play. He's so charismatic.

Feel I've completed NYE bingo as caught both Michael and Lee in the title role, but to allay fears, the play was still mediocre. You can't escape that writing, especially the repetition throughout.

The only advantage of seeing Sheen was getting that Sheen-sheen, but Lee was just as good, and looked slightly less uncomfortable singing the Get Happy number (poor Michael).

Given many of the lukewarm responses on here, I went with relatively low expectations when I saw this last night.

And, to my surprise, I really rather liked this. Michael Sheen is terrific - a real star turn, who lifts this play to another level. I thought the concept of Nye reliving his life as a dream worked really well. The school scene was particularly brilliant. However, the actual creation of the NHS is surprisingly rushed in the second act. And I would've liked more of Jennie Lee.

Some clever bits of staging, such as the transition into the Commons. Wasn't quite sure what to make of the laser-style coal mine...

Caught this on its final performance in Cardiff. Hadn’t read the board or reviews before hand and glad I hadn’t as I’d maybe have swerved it and in a way I wish I had.

I really struggled to connect with the play and found the characters a caricature rather than fleshed out people. I think the acting choices of some of the cast bordered on hammy - Churchill doing a little dance and the deputy prime minister being a panto villain were more cringe inducing than laugh inducing.

Michael Sheen is what you’d expect, certainly a good performance but a character so 2D that it garnered no emotional response and made lines, including the last line of the play, fall flat and I kind of felt embarrassed by it.

There were many people leaving the theatre crying and emotional so I was certainly one of the more cynical audience members but to be honest, the NHS is so beloved that I think Michael Sheen could have just walked on stage and shouted ‘I love the NHS’ that it would have got the same applause and ovation and saved me 3 hrs.

Design was muddled, very claustrophobic but I loved the parliament set.

The song and dance number lost me. The surreal aspect is never really fully established that just leaves you questioning ‘is this just national theatre being National theatre or does it serve a purpose?’ Similar thoughts around the choreographed movement and the teacher with the long canes. It’s not until the line at the end where it’s established as dreams rather than flashbacks does it sort of make sense.

This is a small point but I spent the first 20 minutes thinking the actress playing the wife was doing a bad Welsh accent and I wasn’t alone in thinking that. As the Celtic accents are similar, and true Welsh accents, not cliched are hard. Also as you’d assume his wife would be Welsh (without any prior knowledge) a brief line to establish this earlier would have saved confusion.

Would probably settle on 2 stars. Would this have any life, or be remotely interesting to audiences without the star power of Michael Sheen

THIS is returning?? Yikes.

It sold very well, and has a good name in it, and was commercially one of Norris' biggest successes - no surprise to me this is back.

I'm reasonably savvy at papering and discounts, and I had to buy tickets for Nye (and a good chunk of it was sold out) so if that's the case, it somehow passed me which is rare