Nye details the life of Labour MP Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan (played by Michael Sheen), documenting his personal struggles and his campaign to establish the NHS.
The play is far from a dry historical piece. Sheen’s performance shines with heartwarming, childlike wonder.
The play begins in the South Wales NUM library. Here Bevan practically leaps about the stage, astounded by the radical ideas available to him through the labour movement at the time, including the works of Marx and Engels.
Bevan is shown as an honest trade unionist, driven by the appalling conditions in the mines, where he worked as a teenager.
His dedication to the struggle strains his home life, as Bevan neglects his father who is dying from black lung. The scene depicting his father’s final moments is particularly harrowing. It alone justifies a trip to the National Theatre.
The play goes through Bevan’s life, including the events surrounding the creation of the NHS, which is shown as the product of his sheer will. This forms the play’s biggest myth.
In reality, the ruling class – in Britain and across Europe – were faced with a revolutionary wave following World War Two. Millions of discontented workers, who had fought and seen their comrades die, now demanded improvements to their conditions.
The Attlee government was therefore forced to grant concessions in order to save the system from itself.
On the one hand, Nye depicts Bevan as a working-class firebrand, delivering critical speeches in Parliament against Churchill’s leadership during the war.
On the other hand, the play also looks favourably on his ‘pragmatism’ – for example, when he votes to keep Churchill in his post.
Charting his political evolution, from an adherent of the revolutionary ideas of Marxism, to a reformist trying to fix capitalism, the play ends with the usual saccharine lip-service about how wonderful an institution the NHS is.
But Bevan’s vision – for a public health service available to anyone, anywhere, free at the point of service – was never fully realised.
And with capitalism left intact by successive Labour governments, the NHS has been undermined year on year by austerity and privatisation, to the point where it is now close to collapse.
We cannot wait for more government ministers (like Bevan) to save us, but must rely on our own mobilisation, organisation, and strength to defend and extend the NHS – to each according to their need.
Nye is showing at the National Theatre in London until 11 May, and is broadcasting in cinemas now.
