Michael Sheen in Nye – review

Michael Sheen’s titanic tribute to founder of NHS

★★★★★

A scene from Nye at the National Theatre London in which actor Michael Sheen is lying on a hospital bed with actors Roger Evans and Sharon Small standing either side of him — Roger Evans, Michael Sheen and Sharon Small in Nye. Photo: Johan Persson

A man is dying in a hospital bed. He is flanked by his wife and his oldest friend. Heavily sedated with pain killing morphine, his brain takes him back to significant episodes in his life. And what a life. Because this Aneurin Bevan known as Nye who spearheaded the foundation of the National Health Service.

In the course of the evening, while we do learn something about how the service came into being, much more to the point we discover why it was so important to this man and what made him into one of the Labour Party’s most powerful figures.

Playwright Tim Price’s concept is superb. For the entire play, Nye is on stage in his pyjamas and often in his hospital bed. This may remind you of Dennis Potter’s TV drama The Singing Detective, and there is even a sequence in which Nye sings Get Happy to the backing of a brass band. Whatever the inspiration, it’s a highly effective device.

It may be fair to say that, because of the constant presence of Nye, the production would not succeed without an actor of exceptional brilliance in the role. Fortunately, in Michael Sheen, it has one. He never overplays the part, tempting as it must be when portraying one of the twentieth century’s great orators. Nye himself may have had a huge ego, he may have been disloyal, and these characteristics are hinted at, but what we are given by Michael Sheen is a man scared by his present condition and wondering desperately whether his life has been worthwhile. It is a magnetic and moving performance.

A scene from Nye at the National Theatre in London in which Michael Sheen in pyjamas with a book in his hand is being held up by other cast members — Michael Sheen and the cast of Nye. Photo: Johan Persson

Vicki Mortimer’s clever set uses green hospital-style curtains to open to reveal a whole ward of beds, and close to provide the intimacy of a single room. The beds and curtains also move around to create a schoolroom, the House of Commons, a library, the local council chamber and a parliamentary tea room. A low ceiling from which hang the lights emphasises depth and human scale. The lighting designed by Paule Constable enhances each scene: flat fluorescent for the ward, green laser for the coal face, and so on.

So, we encounter Nye bullied by a teacher because his stammer, and receiving solidarity from his friends including his lifelong friend Archie Lush, given a solid portrayal by Roger Evans, and it’s he who helps him overcome his stammer by introducing him to the miners’ free library where he learns alternatives that avoid the traps of words beginning with ‘s’. And of course, it’s his wide vocabulary that helps him become one of the great orators of his time.

We see how he organises the mine workers in his home town Tredegar. How he was a lone and unpopular voice opposing that other great orator WinstonChurchill during World War Two. Tony Jayawardena giving a very amusing version of the wartime leader as a charming persuader, symbolically dancing light on his feet.

In the post-War Labour government, Nye becomes Health Minister and forces through the National Health Service against considerable opposition both from within his own party (a egocentric patronising Herbert Morrisson is played by Jon Furlong) and from the doctors. He sues tactics learned from his youth, his brief time in the mines and his time in local politics, as well his power of persuasion. Although in the end the doctors are brought round by throwing a lot of money at them. The use of a stark black-and-white video created by Jon Driscoll is hugely effective. First it shows the myriad challenges facing the new universal health service and overwhelming Nye, especially when people step out of the screen to tell their personal story. Then it shows the faces of the doctors harsh, greedy and recalcitrant.

On a personal front, we learn how his poetry-loving mineworker father who died from coal dust in the lungs influenced him. And how he met and wooed his wife and fellow MP Jenny Lee. Sharon Small is wonderful as the far left feminist, sharp of mind and tongue.

A worthy swansong for Rufus Norris

There are elements of a history lesson, but ultimately this is the story of a man and his mission. It is told with humour and compassion. Director Rufus Norris, in his last production as Artistic Director of the National Theatre, uses the stage to the full, creating a feel that is both epic and intimate. There are complex scenes choreographed by Steven Hogget and Jess Williams, there are small moments of passion and poignancy.

Now, you can say, as some critics have, that the other characters have little depth, and that may be true but this is a play about Nye Bevan. You may even say that it is not a full picture of him or the full story of the formation of the NHS. That may also be true, but why expect it to be something that it doesn’t claim to be? What we are given are the episodes that stand out in a life as remembered by a dying man.

When death finally arrives, he asks plaintively: ‘Did I look after everyone?’ It is a moment that brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat, and I was not alone. Tears for the loss of someone who we have come to care about, and maybe also for a health service that was started with such high ideals.

Nye is at the National Theatre until 11 May, after which it will transfer to Wales Millennium Centre from 18 May to 1 June. There will also be a National Theatre Live broadcast in cinemas from 23 April.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel theatre reviews With Paul Seven

Coincidentally on the same day as I saw Nye, I also watched The Human Body at the Donmar Warehouse in which Keeley Hawes as a local GP and Labour politician is involved in ushering in the NHS at local level while having a Brief Encounter-ish affair with a film star played by Jack Davenport. If you’d like to know what I thought of it, click here.

August 4, 2023August 5, 2023

Rock Follies – Minerva Chichester – Review

Legendary TV series returns as a musical

Three female actors standing in a line raising their right arms in a scne from Rock Follies at the Minerva Theatre Chichetser in July 2023 — Zizi Strallen, Angela Marie Hurst & Carly Bawden in Rock Follies. Photo: Johan Persson

Back in 1976, when Rock Follies first appeared on the nation’s screens, TV was very different to today. There was no satellite or streaming, not even recorders, so whereas nowadays 3 million viewers is considered a success, back then Rock Follies had 15 million people watching live.

Consequently, many older people will remember it well, however anyone under, say, 60, may be puzzled as to what the fuss is about. So first, a bit of background. It’s hard to imagine now but in the 1970s, women were rare in the British pop charts and female groups were non-existent. The pop industry was dominated by men both on and off stage. Rock Follies imagined the fate of a female singing group.

And that fate at that time was always likely to be one of chauvinism and exploitation. Equal pay for women had only come into law a few months before the series began. The assumption was still that women in the music industry would be secretaries or groupies. It was a very different world, although the Me-Too movement has shown that less has changed than we might hope.

The title Rock we understand, but why Follies? I’m not sure. Perhaps the creators wanted to reassure an older audience who might be wary of a TV drama about rock music that it would be in the tradition of the spectacular song and dance ‘Follies’ from the early part of the 20th century. Or maybe it was meant to be an ironic suggestion that the idea of a female rock group was a foolish fantasy.

In fact, there’s a lot of irony involved in Rock Follies. Given the way the three singers are treated in the drama, it’s ironic that the people who actually came up with the original idea were also three women but it was used without payment or credit by the television company. Only after a court case are Diane Langton, Gaye Brown and Annabel Leventon getting the recognition they deserve, including a credit in the programme for this new musical version at the Minerva Theatre.

And, although it is a story of three feminist women who challenge the male world by writing and singing their own songs, the original screenplay and lyrics were written by a man, Howard Schuman. That’s not a criticism. Mr Schuman created great characters and a compelling story. The songs were also composed by a man, the talented Andy Mackay from Roxy Music.

In the current production, the backing musicians are all men. A good band, by the way, led by Toby Higgins.

So when the women call themselves The Little Ladies and then have to explain ‘it’s ironic’, the question is always there: how ironic is it when they are patronised, abused and exploited by men from the music industry, and manipulated into being something they don’t want to be? The women also encounter chauvinist journalists, drugs and messy personal relationships. They do try to stand their ground and some of the best moments are when the men are put in their place. Eventually, they are driven apart by internal rivalry and differences. (By the way, a lot of young male pop artists were also abused and exploited.)

It’s been the job of Chloë Moss to take all the riches of ten hours of TV drama and reduce them to a two-and-a-half hour musical, while integrating nearly all of two albums worth of songs. On the whole, she does a good job, retaining the essential elements, and making a few changes for the sake of a much shorter story arc. Where I think she could have done better is to have slowed the pace a little. We rush through scene after scene. This is partly because there are over 30 songs to fit in. Good as they are, and often accompanied by some delightful choreography by Carrie-Anne Ingrouille, they don’t tend to advance the story or reveal character.

Consequently, there is even less time to get to know the characters and be involved in their experiences. The dialogue is often a brief exchange that can sound stilted. Having said that, the musical could have done with the women performing more than one song in a row, maybe at the end. That way, they could have got the audience clapping along and appreciating the women united in ‘girl power’.

Strong singers

Philippa Stefani and cast in Rock Follies. Photo: Johan Persson

The main characters are well drawn. Dee is a strong feminist and the driving force of the group. Played by Angela Marie Hurst, she has, and is meant to have, the best voice- a stirring top note-hitting soul sound. Anna, played by Carly Bawden is the intellectual. She’s thoughtful but also unable to cope with pressure. Zizi Strallen is the funny, privileged Q, who avoids confrontation, and has, as someone says, splinters in her bottom from sitting on the fence.

The two people who try to guide them with some degree of care are Harry, played as kindly but weak, by Samuel Barnett and Kitty, a plain speaking, forceful American, played by Tamsin Carroll, who probably gets the most laughs. Philippa Stefani, a late addition to the group, is a plain-speaking Geordie called Roxy who adds another powerful voice.

The others are pretty much one dimensional but, in the time available, it would unfair to expect them to be anything more. The cast including Fred Haig, Stephenson Ardern-Sodje and Sebastian Torkia bring them to life.

Designer Vicki Mortimer makes clever and appropriate use of flight cases (those black boxes with metal edges that are on wheels and contain sound equipment) to represent all the furniture as needed- dressing tables, chairs, even a bed. They roll easily on and off and around the otherwise empty stage floor with the minimum of fuss but the maximum of effect.

In such an open space, lighting plays a vital part. Paule Constable‘s design is excellent at conveying the varying atmospheres of a pub, an office, a recording studio, a dressing room, a TV chat show, and of course a concert stage.

For me, Rock Follies didn’t quite work in the Chichester Festival Theatre’s Minerva Theatre. It’s an intimate theatre with the audience on three sides. There’s no reason why a musical shouldn’t work there. I recall a brilliant production of The Pajama Game. But it does require the actors to play to all three sides.

Unfortunately, the back of the stage is filled with a structure that accommodates the live band at the top and a small stage for the occasional song sung at a concert. I don’t doubt this was brought about by necessity but it has the effect of forcing the cast too far forward into the open space. Director Dominic Cooke moves the cast around in a smooth flowing performance but they inevitably pitch too much of the show to the centre with their backs, or at best their sides, often being all that can be seen from the extreme edges of the seating. If you do decide to see this show, I strongly recommend that you sit in that centre block.

Nevertheless, Rock Follies is an entertaining musical blessed with some very good performances.

Rock Follies runs at the Minerva until 26 August 2023

Paul was given a review ticket by the producer

Click here to watch this review on YouTube on the Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven channel

September 30, 2021October 2, 2021

The Normal Heart at The National Theatre – review

Larry Kramer’s blistering attack on prejudice and complacency in the early days of AIDS epidemic

★★★★

Production photo from The Normal Heart at the National Theatre — Ben Daniels & Dino Fetscher in The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks

The Normal Heart, written in 1985 as the AIDS epidemic was finally beginning to be acknowledged, is based on author Larry Kramer’s own experience of this period. It’s a play that highlights prejudice and ignorance, fighting for what is right, and what it’s like to live in a time of plague.

The lead character Ned is semi-autobiographical and it’s great to see Ben Daniels given the starring role. He’s an excellent actor who always delivers on stage or screen. These days is probably best known for playing Princess Margaret’s husband in The Crown but in this production, directed by Dominic Cooke, he shows how he can carry a whole show.

This production was stopped in its tracks by the COVID -19 pandemic. So, inevitably, now that it’s finally made it onto the Olivier stage, we view it in the light of our experience of what’s happened over the last year and a half. We recognise the authorities’ slowness to respond to what was going on, albeit nothing like the fatal head-in-the-sand attitude to the early deaths within New York’s gay community. In the unwillingness of people to do what’s necessary to save lives, we can see a parallel with some gay men back then refusing to modify their sex lives. We are also familiar with wide-ranging and sometimes wild theories about causes and cures that have since gone by the wayside. In the play, you get the sense of bewilderment and panic about where this so-called ‘gay plague’ has come from and how it’s being spread.

What’s also happened between the postponement of this production and now is the joyous but devastating TV series It’s A Sin by Russell T Davies. That was set in the UK rather than New York and took us into the 90s but anyone who has seen it will recognise the way some newly liberated gay men became highly promiscuous during the 70s and 80s, and again the slowness to react, and the crushing sadness of friends dying all around, and the reconciliation between some parents, especially mothers, and their dying sons.

The Normal Heart is much more overtly political than It’s A Sin. It might be better compared with Albert Camus‘ The Plague, in which an outbreak of bubonic plague follows a similar trajectory and is intended as an analogy for the rise of Nazism.

The Normal Heart follows closely the developments in early 1980s New York: the early deaths, the uncertainties, one doctor flagging up the concern, and the forming of an organisation intended to warn gay men of the danger, help those that contracted AIDs, and pursue the authorities for support.

It’s hard to know what’s more depressing: people faced with the possibility of contracting a fatal disease still carrying on with a reckless lifestyle, or the authorities and media trying to pretend it wasn’t happening because this seemed to be only to do with gay men, and not something they wanted to be associated with. So both familiar and yet still shocking.

Ned is instantly at odds with his fellow campaigners. He is all for directness and shouting from the rooftops in order to pressurise those in power into action, and his fellow gay men to refrain from sex. I guess he’s the kind of person who these days would be gluing himself to the motorway. Others, some still in the closet, argue for a more softly softly approach.

Humour, pain, anger and compassion

Because the abrasive Ned is never afraid to tell it like it is, he has some barnstorming moments, but the other actors in Ned’s circle including Luke Norris, Dino Fetscher, Daniel Monks and Danny Lee Wynter, take hold of their well drawn, varied characters and fill this evening with humour, pain, anger and compassion.

Production photo by Helen Maybanks showin Liz Carr in The Normal Heart at the Ntional Theatre London in 2021 — Liz Carr in The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks

Liz Carr plays Doctor Brookner who first notices the increase in this distinctive illness and goes from compassionate but objective medic to militant campaigner, with a blistering speech in the second act. ‘How does it always happen that all of the idiots are always on your team?’ she asks her opponents.

Ned is also in conflict with his straight brother Ben, given a nicely nuanced performance by Robert Bowman, who shows the love he feels for his brother while barely able to disguise his homophobia.

Not only does Kramer give the various members of the group the space to express their differing feelings and opinions, he digs deep into his main protagonist’s character. Despite all the risks of intimacy, the previously lonely Ned falls in love and suddenly the story of this epidemic becomes very personal. Love is what makes Ned a human ding rather than a simple polemicist

The end is heartbreaking, compounded by the misery of the latter stages of the disease and, even after their death, the continuing prejudice in the treatment of their bodies. If you are not in tears by the end, I would question whether you have a heart.

Although the setting is specifically the gay community of New York in the early 80s, the behaviour it shows can be seen again and again in many other situations. We’re reminded by Ned in the play how governments turned a blind eye to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews. And if we look around today, we could take the example of the way a male-dominated, misogynistic judicial system consistently fails to take effective action against the number of rapes and other violence against women. Or the way elderly people in care homes were treated during the COVID -19 outbreak (see Help by Jack Thorne on All4). Or the daily discrimination against black people (see my review of Typical).

A word about the set. The Olivier at the National Theatre has been converted into a theatre-in-the round. The stage is a circle with a thin light all the way round the circumference, perhaps suggesting the way gay men were seen at that time as separate from the rest of society. It’s pretty much bare apart from a few benches so this production is all about the acting, and that to be frank is a relief after many productions I’ve seen in this large space where the set design has dwarfed the play. The set, designed by Vicki Mortimer, also has a flame burning high up throughout. I took this to represent the kind of eternal flame you find at a tomb of the unknown soldier, as if to say these thousands who died through the prejudice and ignorance should not be forgotten.

To make this truly in-the-round, there are seats on what would normally be the stage, though it was my impression, sitting in the circle that the actors faced to the traditional front the majority of the time. A word of warning: there are lighting towers positioned around edge of the circular stage. These will inevitably give you a restricted view if you sit in the right or left stalls and circle. I know this to be true because a delayed train caused me to arrive at the last moment, so I was sitting to the side for the first act before I was able to take my central seat.

The Normal Heart is a deeply moving play, with scintillating, witty, powerful dialogue that deserves this well acted revival.

Revision made on 1 October 2021 to add more about the significance of love and the universality of the message

The Normal Heart is performing at the National Theatre until 6 November 2021.

Click to watch this review on the YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews

October 2, 2017January 8, 2018

Sondheim’s Follies at the National Theatre

Superb Cast Make Follies A Night To Treasure

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Follies at the National Theatre reviewed by Paul Seven Lewis of One Minute Theatre Reviews — Follies at the National Theatre. Photo Johan Persson

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies is a difficult musical. To carry it off, you need an extraordinarily good cast. Fortunately the National Theatre production has one.

Imelda Staunton is now the preeminent West End musical star, certainly for the more mature roles. Her performance as Sally consolidates her reputation by offering a perfect, beautifully acted and sung portrayal of sadness and illusion. That would be joy enough but just as perfect is Janie Dee. In the role of the cynical but brittle Phyllis, her voice, her acting and her dancing reminded me that she belongs in the highest ranks of musical performers.

Dee gets the most laughs with her songs Could I Leave You? and The Story Of Lucy And Jessie. When she finally crumbles, her performance is every bit as poignant as Staunton’s, who expresses her damaged character through the songs Don’t Look At Me, Too Many Mornings and Losing My Mind.

The musical is set in 1971 in a condemned theatre where former showgirls from Weismann’s Follies, a series of Ziegfeld-style musical reviews from the inter-War years, are gathering for a reunion. Attention centres on two of the women and their husbands. We discover that both couples have relationship problems which date back to their Follies days. This is cleverly told by showing us the ‘ghosts’ of their younger selves.

Other women reveal their illusions about their lives and relive their glory moments, again accompanied by their younger selves. More top class performances include those of Josephine Barstow, Dawn Hope and Tracie Bennett.

Imelda Staunton & Janie Dee in Follies reviewed by Paul Seven Lewis of One Minute Theatre Reviews — Imelda Staunton & Janie Dee in Follies. Photo Johan Persson

Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton are magnificent

Why do I say Follies is a ‘difficult’ musical? There is very little in the way of plot. The exploration of the main characters’ unhappy present relationships and past regrets is told for a substantial part of it as a series of book or character songs.

Sondheim’s music is complex and deep with emotion but, knowing that I was watching a production that runs for two hours and ten minutes without an interval, there was a moment when I wondered whether it was ever going to move along.

Just when it seemed Follies was getting nowhere, we were treated to impressive song-and-dance numbers like Who’s That Woman and a series of pastiches of pre-war Broadway musical songs, excellently choreographed by Bill Deamer. They provided some much needed fun and spectacle.

Follies comes to a climax with Loveland, a collection of Broadway parodies in which each of the main characters sings about their ‘folly’, whether of youth or maturity.

The production, directed by Dominic Cooke, does the musical proud with its 37 strong cast and 21 piece orchestra. The large Olivier stage is used well by designer Vicki Mortimer to create the crumbling theatre complete with a flickering neon sign and, when it provides the setting for the more glitzy Broadway numbers, it gives an apt visual representation of the contrast between past and present. The space is great for the song-and-dance numbers but too big for the book songs but that is the paradox of this brilliant, broken musical.

Click on this link to watch my YouTube review at One Minute Theatre Reviews or watch it below

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies runs until 3 January 2018 at the National Theatre.

A Kendall commented on my YouTube review: “The criticisms of James Goldman’s book as having little ‘plot’ are shown to be irrelevant when you have this good a production, because what it becomes is, in effect, a meditation on ageing, the death of dreams, the sense of regret, guilt and much more. That is why it draws people in so very deeply to it. And in that sense, it is to musical theatre what some of Wagner’s mature works are to opera.”

It’s a good point. Maybe we can too hung up on stories in musicals and should sometimes just enjoy the mood of the work.