Culture Highlights 2024: Michael Sheen deserves every plaudit available for his performance of Nye

Tony Burgess

On July 5th 1948 , despite five long years of the Tories, cajoled by Churchill fighting against it, the NHS in Britain was established. All thanks to a certain Welsh politician called Nye Bevan.

Nye overcame the delaying tactics by the Tories to create this institution that all of us at some time in our lives have used and will continue to use. Perhaps many forget how the NHS was established and the ethos and reason behind it.

As Nye Bevan argued: “ No society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”

So I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to The National Theatre for their production of ‘Nye’.

Praise must be levelled to the writer Tim Price and the director Rufus Norris for bringing this story to the forefront of people’s consciousness in an innovative, moving and entertaining manner, especially during the current maligning representations of the  NHS.

I haven’t as yet mentioned the one person who deserves every plaudit available for his performance of Nye, namely Wales’ very own Michael Sheen.

His performance, energy and portrayal of Britain’s greatest ever politician was truly superlative. His acting  was in an entire class of its own.

Michael Sheen owned every inch of the stage and the story. I’m not sure if Michael uses the Stanislavsky method of acting  but during those performances he was Nye Bevan. I’m only too sure Nye’s story resounded with this proud Welsh actor as he adopted Nye’s mantle.

Rollercoaster ride

I sincerely thank everyone involved in this production for taking me and thousands (possibly millions) of other audience members on a seamless rollercoaster ride, an emotional and  appreciative journey of  the life of Nye Bevan and the birth of the NHS.

If I could finish with yet again one of Nye’s quotes ,

“The NHS will last as long as there is folk left with the faith to fight for it”

Well after this seeing this production I’m certainly going to fight for it!

Philip Gwyn Jones

William Dalrymple’s book The Golden Road [Bloomsbury] on ancient India and its pivotal role in global trade and the global transmission of ideas breezily made entirely new maps in my mind and re-set my understanding of the Roman Empire, the sources of Arabic wisdom, where zero comes from, the rise of Buddhism, the importance of monks, Sino-Indian relations, etc etc.

Also, meeting China’s Buddhist Empress Wu in his pages will make you come undone.

With similar abilities to turn your insides out, it staggers me that Liz Lawrence isn’t acknowledged widely yet as the songwriting genius with a golden voice that they are, but their latest LP, PEANUTS [Chrysalis], is a set of the tastiest treats, full of feeling, subtlety, empathy and intelligence, all sung in that pure bell of a voice.

Top level joy.