Nye - NT Olivier / Wales Millennium / YouTube

Saw this last night and thought it was good in parts. Some of the 'episodes' are better than others - a bit more of the Dennis Potter influenced bits would have helped - or maybe that's just because I am old enough to remember the first broadcasts of The Singing Detective and Blue Remembered Hills. I also - given that one of my sons was in it - inevitably thought of the London Olympics opening ceremony (all those swirling beds and nurses) and all that hope and expectation there was around that. My husband and I first met over 30 years ago when we were studying for PhDs in Labour History/Politics and so the subject matter of Nye is right up our street. It was good to be reminded of (and no doubt for many in the audience introduced to) just how much opposition the BMA put up to the founding of the National Health Service. It was also good on the pragmatism/compromises necessary to get things done in politics. Good use of video too. But it was a bit long. Good that it is going to Wales.

I think I would have preferred this if it had focused on founding the NHS and gone into more detail about that, with perhaps some occasional flashbacks to earlier in Nye’s life - rather than trying to tell his entire life story and the NHS aspect feeling a bit rushed in the last 25/30% of the show.

Saw this this afternoon. I enjoyed it but agree it lacks focus. Acting is excellent and overall I would say 3.5 stars.

A thoroughly entertaining and informative evening with a wonderful performance from Nichael Sheen. Fun and moving

I think this absence was planned for a while as it was noted on the booking page but it was all the way at the top and would be easy to miss. I think I only noticed it because these dates seemed to have slightly better availability than others. The best notification I saw recently was for Sunset Boulevard where you clicked on the date to book and it told you then if Nicole wasn’t scheduled to perform. Others seem to list it on different pages to the booking which is easy to miss or don’t bother to highlight the alternate if there is one at all.

Without being unkind to Lee Mengo whose work I do not know, would it not be fair to publish when he is doing it and when Sheen? Once I turned up to a play expecting Maggie Smith and she wasn’t on; I was given a refund because I didn’t want to see anyone else do the part at that time.Mean? Maybe but we do book to see performers not just the piece being offered. In fact the performer I guess drives the advance booking more than the play.

The Lee mengo dates have been well- publicised on nye homepage and on the relevant performance dates since at least opening of public booking.

This was a night of disappointments. Firstly, Michael Sheen who *was* scheduled to perform tonight, was "indisposed". While understudy Lee Mengo is good, I was particularly looking forward to seeing Sheen, having never seen him live, and he was the main draw. Checking my spam and deleted items, there was no pre-show email at all, so I've no idea if the schedule change was forewarned or last-minute. (Sheen was supposed to be back from Thursday. Was he on last night?)

The more significant disappointment was the play itself. My expectations were clearly too high and it failed to match them.

I see that playwright Tim Price has experience writing for Casualty, Eastenders, Holby City and Doctors, and it shows. This is dumbed-down to lowest-common-denominator intellect levels. It feels like a piece written for kid's tv. Nye's political opponents are caricatures who would not be out of place in a pantomime, and the rest of the secondary characters are barely drawn at all.

I cringed at Churchill who appears to be channelling Sydney Greenstreet rather than your actual Winston, and "deputy PM" Herbert Morrison is a grotesque parody of a villain. Meanwhile, Clement Attlee sounds like Margaret Thatcher in calm mode.

Bevan and his wife Jenny Lee are the only people here with any depth to them, but even then we're very much in the shallow end of the pool. Lee, as presented, is hard to warm to, and that seems entirely at odds with the far more interesting real-life person I have subsequently read up on. A play centred on her would be intriguing.

Despite being the eponymous hero, Bevan himself never quite rings true; he feels not fully formed. The scene where he persuades a strong-minded and resistant Lee into a first date by force of charm and by not taking no for an answer is excellent, and the best of Price's attempts to show us the man. But a later scene where Bevan unexpectedly supports his political opponent is weak and unconvincing. I was desperate to hear the nuanced reasons behind his thinking, because his sudden conversion to realpolitik jars.

Any actual history is over-simplified. You'd think Bevan single-handedly came up with the concept of universal healthcare free at the point of use and that its implementation was his work alone.

Metaphors are deployed without subtlety. I am not sure I believe that a miner striking a seam of coal with his pickaxe at exactly the right point can bring the whole lot crashing down, but you just know that Price has only written that so that Bevan can have the same metaphorical effect later. It's very lazy. And who knew that seams of coal glow green and emit an electronic buzz when touched? Thanks for that insight Mr Norris! (I know some poetic licence is allowed as events are playing out in Nye's unconscious mind, but still...)

Actually, I'm being unfair on director Rufus. Some of his touches work very well. He just never seems to have a feel for what works and what doesn't -- cf. Hex -- so we get all his ideas, the good and the bad.

What is exceptionally good is the final five minutes. Whatever you feel about what went before, I defy you not to be moved. I think I was blubbing partly out of pride for what had been achieved in 1948 and partly in sorrow at what the NHS has now become in 2024.

Three stars.

Act 1: 19:33-20:46
Act 2: 21:10-22:11

I saw yesterday afternoon and was equally disappointed not to see Michael Sheen. I was walking passed the National later in the evening after watching A Mirror at the Trafalgar Theatre. Had a look at the notices and he wasn’t playing in the evening either.

Slightly off topic but for those needing a fix of Michael Sheen I would thoroughly recommend this programme on the BBC iplayer.Sheen is very impressive in this but even more so are the young people interviewing him. Worth thirty minutes of anybody's time.
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/05/the-assembly-review-michael-sheen-is-grilled-by-35-neurodivergent-young-people-and-its-pure-tv-joy

I enjoyed this. Went in with low expectations and I found it entertaining and imaginatively staged and quite moving at the end. So lovely to see Michael Sheen and hear him sing (rather well!). Not everyone could have pulled that play off wearing pyjamas and with a horrible wig, MS could. For a £20 front seat it was a bargain!

Having seen this at both the theatre and on screen, this is one of an unusual group of plays which I think comes across better on screen than in person.

Very well produced for the screen and a delight to have a genuine live broadcast again.

Fingers crossed for more to come.