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Nye
One man's dream of the NHS.
From campaigning at the coalfield to leading the battle to create the NHS, Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan is often referred to as the politician with the greatest influence on our country without ever being Prime Minister.
Confronted with death, Nye's deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Churchill in an epic Welsh fantasia.
Tim Price's surreal and spectacular journey through the life and legacy of the man who transformed Britain's welfare state premiered at the National Theatre, in a co-production with Wales Millennium Centre, with Michael Sheen as Nye Bevan. This edition was published to coincide with the original production in February 2024.
From campaigning at the coalfield to leading the battle to create the NHS, Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan is often referred to as the politician with the greatest influence on our country without ever being Prime Minister.
Confronted with death, Nye's deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Churchill in an epic Welsh fantasia.
Tim Price's surreal and spectacular journey through the life and legacy of the man who transformed Britain's welfare state premiered at the National Theatre, in a co-production with Wales Millennium Centre, with Michael Sheen as Nye Bevan. This edition was published to coincide with the original production in February 2024.
128 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 11, 2024
A Life of Nye
A review of the Methuen Drama paperback (March 20, 2024).
This is an outstanding play by Welsh playwright Tim Price which covers the life of Aneurin "Nye" Bevan (1897-1960), who was instrumental in creating the UK's National Health Service in 1948. It is done in a somewhat surrealistic fashion with Bevan at the end of life in hospital in 1960 reliving his past with scenes from his childhood, home life, labour organizing, and parliamentary life. It culminates with the successful introduction of the NHS in 1948 which fades poignantly into Bevan's own passing.
Curtain call at the end of "Nye" as broadcast by National Theatre Live with Michael Sheen (wearing pyjamas) as Nye Bevan along with many members of the cast.
I wanted to read the play in parallel with seeing the recent National Theatre Live production which was enormously elaborate and involved multiple fast scene changes combined with film and other lighting and sound effects.
There were not many changes from the printed page to the stage version, although I did note in the concluding slides that the wording in the stage adaptation differed slightly from the original text:
Trivia and Links
If you are reading this before November 11, 2024 you can still see this for free on National Theatre Live (NTLive) from November 7 to 10, 2024 as a fundraiser stream which is available on YouTube here.
Read a Variety article about the free broadcast here.
See two trailers for the NTLive production on YouTube here and here.
If you miss the free YouTube streaming and the NTLive in cinemas broadcasts, the Nye production will likely show up eventually at the NT at Home pay-per-view streaming channel here.
A review of the Methuen Drama paperback (March 20, 2024).
This is an outstanding play by Welsh playwright Tim Price which covers the life of Aneurin "Nye" Bevan (1897-1960), who was instrumental in creating the UK's National Health Service in 1948. It is done in a somewhat surrealistic fashion with Bevan at the end of life in hospital in 1960 reliving his past with scenes from his childhood, home life, labour organizing, and parliamentary life. It culminates with the successful introduction of the NHS in 1948 which fades poignantly into Bevan's own passing.
Curtain call at the end of "Nye" as broadcast by National Theatre Live with Michael Sheen (wearing pyjamas) as Nye Bevan along with many members of the cast.
I wanted to read the play in parallel with seeing the recent National Theatre Live production which was enormously elaborate and involved multiple fast scene changes combined with film and other lighting and sound effects.
There were not many changes from the printed page to the stage version, although I did note in the concluding slides that the wording in the stage adaptation differed slightly from the original text:
Within ten years of the creation of the NHS, infant mortality decreased by 50%.
Since its founding, life expectancy has increased by 12 years.
Every day 1.3 million people are treated, based on clinical need, not the ability to pay.
Trivia and Links
If you are reading this before November 11, 2024 you can still see this for free on National Theatre Live (NTLive) from November 7 to 10, 2024 as a fundraiser stream which is available on YouTube here.
Read a Variety article about the free broadcast here.
See two trailers for the NTLive production on YouTube here and here.
If you miss the free YouTube streaming and the NTLive in cinemas broadcasts, the Nye production will likely show up eventually at the NT at Home pay-per-view streaming channel here.
May 7, 2024
2.5, rounded up.
Before reading this, I had no idea who the main character was, or really anything about the creation of the NHS. Basically, I figured if Michael Sheen was willing to be in it, it must have something to recommend it. And there are a modicum of effective scenes, and I am sure Sheen was brilliant in it - but the play itself is rather moribund, much like the central character for large portions of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatr...
https://www.ft.com/content/e1119366-7...
https://www.playbill.com/article/watc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4H8...
Before reading this, I had no idea who the main character was, or really anything about the creation of the NHS. Basically, I figured if Michael Sheen was willing to be in it, it must have something to recommend it. And there are a modicum of effective scenes, and I am sure Sheen was brilliant in it - but the play itself is rather moribund, much like the central character for large portions of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatr...
https://www.ft.com/content/e1119366-7...
https://www.playbill.com/article/watc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4H8...
December 10, 2024
Of course, I loved a play about a stuttering boy from a mining town who becomes a secretary of a delivery-focused government ministry and builds the core institution of modern British nationalism.
The written play is even better than the performance in the National Theatre - especially the early parts read better with narrations.
The written play is even better than the performance in the National Theatre - especially the early parts read better with narrations.
November 12, 2024
The NHS & Bevan are ill served by a didactic & mushy play that is so uncritical & shallow it lacks interest & drama.
May 18, 2024
Reading it back is just as moving as seeing it performed. Not having known the story of Britain's NHS, this is such a surprising play. Funny, sad, touching, it is a beautiful piece of stage craft.
July 20, 2024
So moving. Astonishing. Need to see the NT Live showing of this !!!
April 28, 2025
Feschti Hamilton-Energy.
May 12, 2024
I found it to be incredibly compelling, and easy to read.
November 11, 2024
4.75 ⭐️. Really interesting story telling the life of Aneurin Bevan. As an American it not only was a history lesson in a way but also just a beautiful story.
July 13, 2025
Within ten years of the NHS being launched infant mortality declined by 50 percent.
Death by infectious disease declined by 80 percent.
Every year the NHS makes over 590 million contacts.
Aneurin Bevan left school at thirteen and worked as a miner in Wales. Ernest Bevin left school at eleven and rose through the ranks as a union leader. Herbert Morrison left school at fourteen and rose to prominence through local government.
Not many cabinet ministers can hold a candle to those ministers of that 1945 Labour government.
Nye is an excellent play! It is sad, moving, and also funny.
These are my favourite scenes:
1. Nye: I’ll read poetry. Philosophy. The classics. I’ll learn about science! History. Economics. Politics. Marx. Engels. Dialectical materialism. Socialism. Class struggle! Ideological control!
2. Nye: I can visualise the words coming. And I can enunciate them.
3. Nye: No no no, not a strike. Not a strike. The working classes will c-uh unite around an event. Gwen: A strike? Nye: An industrial confrontation. Gwen: Like a strike. Nye: An event that disrupts relations. Gwen: A strike. Just say a strike. It’s a strike.
*These scenes do not make sense unless you have read the play!
Compromise also has an interesting role in the play. Bevan (not Bevin, I always get the two mixed up!) did not compromise the ends but he did the means:
1. The new National Health Service was to be launched on the 5th July with or without the doctors.
2. However, Bevan compromised on health representatives on the boards, consultancy outside the NHS contracts, and the buying and selling of GP surgeries within the healthcare system.
There are only two adjustments that I would make:
1. I thought that the portrays of Churchill and Herbert Morrison were a bit cartoonish.
2. Maybe a bit on the post-1945 Labour government years? There is this scene in the play in which Churchill argues that Bevan is trying to destroy the solidarity of the doctors' union with concessions; Bevan replies: 'concessions, Winston, or compromises?'. However, Bevan exacerbated the split in the Labour Party between the right and left, which weakened the party in the 1950s.
And what about the future of the NHS? It was recently its 77th birthday. However, there are problems! By 2010, overall satisfaction with the NHS was 74 percent and around 2.5 million people were waiting for hospital treatment (and only 7,000 for more than three months). By 2023, satisfaction was 24 percent and around 7.8 million people were waiting for hospital treatment!
Can this Labour government reverse this? Spending on the NHS under the New Labour governments was 34 percent (as a percentage of GDP); however, it is projected to be 49 percent by the end of the 2020s.
Does the UK risk becoming a country with a health service attached to it? And what is the alternative? An insurance-based system? I hope not.
Death by infectious disease declined by 80 percent.
Every year the NHS makes over 590 million contacts.
Aneurin Bevan left school at thirteen and worked as a miner in Wales. Ernest Bevin left school at eleven and rose through the ranks as a union leader. Herbert Morrison left school at fourteen and rose to prominence through local government.
Not many cabinet ministers can hold a candle to those ministers of that 1945 Labour government.
Nye is an excellent play! It is sad, moving, and also funny.
These are my favourite scenes:
1. Nye: I’ll read poetry. Philosophy. The classics. I’ll learn about science! History. Economics. Politics. Marx. Engels. Dialectical materialism. Socialism. Class struggle! Ideological control!
2. Nye: I can visualise the words coming. And I can enunciate them.
3. Nye: No no no, not a strike. Not a strike. The working classes will c-uh unite around an event. Gwen: A strike? Nye: An industrial confrontation. Gwen: Like a strike. Nye: An event that disrupts relations. Gwen: A strike. Just say a strike. It’s a strike.
*These scenes do not make sense unless you have read the play!
Compromise also has an interesting role in the play. Bevan (not Bevin, I always get the two mixed up!) did not compromise the ends but he did the means:
1. The new National Health Service was to be launched on the 5th July with or without the doctors.
2. However, Bevan compromised on health representatives on the boards, consultancy outside the NHS contracts, and the buying and selling of GP surgeries within the healthcare system.
There are only two adjustments that I would make:
1. I thought that the portrays of Churchill and Herbert Morrison were a bit cartoonish.
2. Maybe a bit on the post-1945 Labour government years? There is this scene in the play in which Churchill argues that Bevan is trying to destroy the solidarity of the doctors' union with concessions; Bevan replies: 'concessions, Winston, or compromises?'. However, Bevan exacerbated the split in the Labour Party between the right and left, which weakened the party in the 1950s.
And what about the future of the NHS? It was recently its 77th birthday. However, there are problems! By 2010, overall satisfaction with the NHS was 74 percent and around 2.5 million people were waiting for hospital treatment (and only 7,000 for more than three months). By 2023, satisfaction was 24 percent and around 7.8 million people were waiting for hospital treatment!
Can this Labour government reverse this? Spending on the NHS under the New Labour governments was 34 percent (as a percentage of GDP); however, it is projected to be 49 percent by the end of the 2020s.
Does the UK risk becoming a country with a health service attached to it? And what is the alternative? An insurance-based system? I hope not.
November 7, 2024
fucking love libraries, me
March 12, 2025
Loved this one
July 8, 2025
Broke me into a million pieces. Gyffrous iawn i weld eto yn y haf !!!
April 24, 2024
Stunning work
This is a powerful, deeply stirring play that emphasises the love, care and commitment that shaped the NHS and the stubborn architect behind it. It is a wonderfully imagined piece that resonates in the twenty-first century as the NHS is once again besieged by political voices who refuse to accept it is society's duty to offer health care free to all at the point of need. Highly recommended.
This is a powerful, deeply stirring play that emphasises the love, care and commitment that shaped the NHS and the stubborn architect behind it. It is a wonderfully imagined piece that resonates in the twenty-first century as the NHS is once again besieged by political voices who refuse to accept it is society's duty to offer health care free to all at the point of need. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews