by What better time to reimagine British society and see the beginnings of the welfare state. Last week, Lucy Kirkwood’s The Human Body provided a whirligig version of life after the second world war seen through the eyes of a female doctor. Now Tim Price’s new play, co-produced with the Millennium Center in Wales, looks at the inspiring achievements of Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, the Welsh Labor firebrand who founded the NHS. It’s a wasted opportunity.
No it’s a fever dream. Beginning in 1960, with 62-year-old Bevan in a hospital bed, the play flashes back from time to time: to school days and memories of the minor’s father who died of pneumonia (“black lung disease”), through trade union activism and local council, with the great transformative work he did as health minister he signaled on the left.
The form is broken, giddy: Vicki Mortimer’s design does a good job of the illusionary blend, floating the institutional green of the hospital curtains to the steps of the House of Commons with ease. But the dialogue is dogged, grab-you-by-the-collar tutorial. Interesting nuggets are mechanically explained: his father’s suffering left Bevan with a legacy of wanting to take care of everyone; Horrific bullying by a school teacher awakened a sense of injustice.
Sheen’s performance is fiery but not indulgent, conveying the power of the man and his purring, self-mocking humor
In the theatrical equivalent of the nervous laugh that overcomes one upon hearing bad news, Rufus Norris’s performance has a terrible largishness, which goes beyond conveying the strangeness of the fever. At any particularly instructive moment, the furniture begins to move. Hospital beds are continually being raised so that their occupants are upright. When Clement Attlee (despicably played by Stephanie Jacob as Margaret Thatcher) urges Bevan to take the health care, his desk swings around the stage to corner him. The doctors who opposed the idea of the NHS, Tory politicians with long faces and overextended vowels, are upstarts.
Bevan belonged to that interesting group: the fluent stammerer. Jonathan Miller, Christopher Hitchens and the ObserverPhilip French himself had other shining members. No he convincingly shows that the orator’s celebrated celebratory speech was a direct consequence of the difficulty of regretting his early life. Wanting to avoid words that began with unpronounceable consonants, he ransacked books of synonyms and found a rich vocabulary.
In an excellent program essay, Neil Kinnock describes Bevan’s delivery as “a mixture of brief hesitation and categorical emphasis”. Michael Sheen, with his silky speed, could do too much; it doesn’t. His performance is fiery but not obscure, conveying (even in voluminous, rose-tinted pajamas) the power of the man, the motor of conviction, and – wooing his future wife, Jennie Lee – his humor, self-mockery. . He has a match in Lee Sharon Small: a fearless, visionary but tense man who regrets sacrificing her ambition for her husband’s career. It’s a shame she’s not given more of a voice (shouting was what she loved): Lee went on to become an MP celebrated not in spite of but for being arts minister. That now seems almost unbelievable. Like the idea of a fully funded health service.
Let’s hear it for Roy Williams, whose plays – leaning towards documentary but leaping imaginatively, often focusing on the lives of black British men and women – have captivated and captivated audiences for 30 years. He has produced state-of-the-art plays i Death of Englandd; Radio 4’s thrilling crime series, The Question; one time slammer i Punch Sucker. Now he offers a critical adaptation of Sam Selvon’s brilliant 1956 novel The Lonesome Lonelinesscapturing moments in the lives of the Windrush generation.
The fiction of Selvon – a clear-eyed writer – is a steady streamer with an extremely sarcastic, distinctive style. He seems to speak, in the patois of Trinity, directly from the heart of his character; there is a stream-of-consciousness passage that would have made Virginia Woolf (who didn’t write in Trinity patois) jealous.
Ground lags and door hangers; children point; chaps huddle together. Main characters leap from the stage as if from the page. Romario Simpson’s Galahad is easygoing, relaxed, pretending to be visible as he rattles off London names like Ladbroke Grave. And Moses, Gamba Cole burns with hope and sorrow, bringing new people into his bedroom, teaching them not to look at people (who scare white people) and to catch and cook pigeons. Tobi Bakare is grim and composed as Lewis: his disappointments are jealous; he meets his wife.
Williams welcomes extra space for women’s voices, who practice tongue-twisters and are confused by market traders, and he perfectly embraces the friendship of men: challenging, touching and necessary. Ebenezer Bamgboye’s production is fleet but moves over sharp edges with arty slo-mo writing. Laura Ann Price’s pulsing orange design has no suggestion of 50s fog: it does, however, ignite the fire of London’s new citizens, many of whom were sent to England to work in Bevan’s NHS; many bets.
There is much to be thankful for i Ballyheide, the musical composed by Anaïs Mitchell in 2006, landed in the West End after a run at the National and a great run on Broadway. This retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has dark tones of rumours, brass and soul and a wonderful train number. The moment Zachary James – boss of hell – lets into his rumbling bass about his intention to build walls to keep the unwanted people out looks like a pre-election piece. Gloria Onitiri’s Persephone – with jazz in her voice, a hip flask in her cleavage, and long, elastic legs and arms – is magnetizing.
Rachel Chavkin’s production inspires the world of music but never repeats it. As Orpheus and Eurydice, Dónal Finn and Grace Hodgett Young are sweet-voiced but not powerful enough to resist the gravitational pull of Hades. The stage is so haunted that Orpheus’ walk looks tiny from the underworld: he might as well be going through one of the hairpin queues for the Eurostar.
Star ratings (out of five)
No ★★
The Lonesome Loneliness ★★★★
Ballyheide ★★★
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No at the Olivier, National Theatre, London, until 11 May
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The Lonesome Loneliness at the Jermyn Street Theatre, London, until 6 April
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Ballyheide is at the Lyric, London; booking until 22 December
