Last Updated on November 12, 2025
Michael Sheen returns to the National Theatre as NHS founder Aneurin Bevan.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
With a sellout run at the National Theatre last year, Nye returns to the Olivier Theatre for a limited run, with Michael Sheen reprising the title role in Tim Price’s play about the man who founded the NHS in 1948. Directed by Rufus Norris, this is a bio-epic about Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan. In this polished, surreal production spanning decades, Nye looks back at his life, from his childhood as the son of a coal miner father growing up in Tredegar, South Wales, to his rise as a politician who changed the health service for us all. Nye was an enigmatic powerhouse, but interestingly, we first meet him at his most vulnerable: in a hospital bed in pyjamas, being wheeled back onto a ward after having an operation. It is 1960, and while Nye is dying, his beloved NHS is flourishing.
Vicki Mortimer’s set design immediately places us in a hospital setting, with voiceovers by medical staff, the beeping of machines, and scans of lungs and Nye’s vitals being monitored projected in green onto the back wall of the stage. We are then plunged into the middle of a bustling ward, sharing the joy with Nye of what he ‘birthed’: patients on a clean and well-run ward in various stages of recovery, many doctors and nurses in attendance, the latter in crisp white and blue uniforms, and a tangible confidence that good health and care for most is guaranteed. The cast and hospital beds move in a choreographed, quasi-musical manner, creating a hive of purposeful activity.
At his bedside are his wife, Jennie Lee, played by Sharon Small, and his lifelong best friend, Archie Lush, played by Jason Hughes. Jennie and Archie are concerned for Nye and debate how much to tell him about the findings of his operation. Do they let him live in the hope that, by creating the NHS, he has provided for his fellow patients?
As he is given morphine and becomes unconscious, he drifts into memories and quasi-hallucinations about his past; these scenes are recreated by Sheen, in his pyjamas throughout, alongside the last cast (with colourblind and age-blind casting and women playing men, including Clement Attlee).
Two flashbacks to Nye as a child with his best friend Archie are sublime. These show the formation of Nye’s sense of justice and how, inspired by Archie, he used self-motivated learning and collective action to change not only his life but that of others. The first is set in a classroom with a bullying teacher, and the other in a library where Archie introduces him to the concept of being able to read whatever book you want for free. In both these scenes, Norris’s physical direction and the movement of the ensemble cast is wonderful; lyrical, poignant and comical. Both these scenes focus on Nye’s childhood stutter. As someone with a family member who had a stutter, I was touched by how accurately this was portrayed by Sheen and in Tim Price’s writing, with Nye explaining how certain words that he wants to say are “roadblocks” coming up in his mind. Sheen gave Nye a childlike wonder as well as a surprising maturity, but it was Hughes who really elevated those scenes for me, bringing enthusiasm, sensitivity and energy that was infectious.
As the play progresses, and we see Nye become a politician, the pacing, style and choice of flashbacks is, like the NHS itself, inconsistent. Some parts of Nye’s progression are skipped over very quickly, while other scenes are too long and slow-moving. Sharon Small is another standout as the feisty and smart Jenny Lee, a Scottish politician who meets Nye at a parliamentary meeting, who is an intellectual and political match for Nye, but who, after they married, decides that the best way for the socialism she wants to be achieved is for her to support Nye’s career. However, in the second act of the play, especially, both Small and Hughes are underutilised, with their scenes mainly consisting of them providing exposition.
The combination of trying to combine a history of Nye’s personal relationships, alongside his political accomplishments, was not entirely successful. There was no real throughline personal narrative other than Nye’s declining health, although, of course, the running theme was health. Flashbacks show him struggling at first to cope with his miner father dying from black lung, and then after confronting the fact that his father was dying, announcing to him that “I will take care of you, I will take care of everyone”.
The use of the ensemble and choreographed movement in the first half is not always as effective in the second, where there are some lines and physical set-ups played for laughs. At times, this undercuts the seriousness of the conversations Nye has with people like Churchill and Clement Attlee as he tries to push through reform as the Minister for Health and Housing. There are also a few moments where the writing is too simplistic to fully convey the emotional depth and socio-economic complexity being explored. However, this probably comes from trying to do too much and covering most of his amazing life.
What is most surprising is the small amount of time spent on Nye setting up and arguing for the NHS. We see the doctors being opposed to this decision, and then in a few lines, Nye changes their minds. It would have been interesting to have seen this being explored deeper, given that historically there were doctors who were on his side from the beginning, and others around the UK who shared differing views for differing reasons.
As the play ends, Nye declares that on setting up the NHS, he knew that “the expectation would always exceed capacity”, and that the model was never meant to be perfect. As we can attest today, both of those statements proved true.
Playing at the Olivier Theatre until the 16th of August 2025
Olivier Theatre
National Theatre,
Upper Ground,
South Bank,
London SE1 9PX
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