Olivier theatre, London
Sheen stars as Aneurin Bevan in Tim Price’s drama, unfolding in flashbacks from a hospital bed
This life story begins at the end, with Aneurin “Nye” Bevan in a hospital bed, befittingly for the visionary political colossus who created Britain’s National Health Service in 1948.
As Bevan (Michael Sheen) is creeping towards death, flashbacks of memory bring a hallucinatory quality reminiscent of The Singing Detective: beds and ward curtains are woven into scenes of his childhood as a Welsh miner’s son and a stammering schoolboy bullied by his headteacher. We follow his rise from local council politics to the House of Commons and high office under Clement Attlee (Stephanie Jacob, slightly sinister in a bald wig). Doctors and nurses morph into a bevy of characters from his past, the cast juggling this multiplicity adeptly, and there is a surreal song and dance breakout number as, one presumes, Bevan’s morphine kicks in.
