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.
The Estate – Dorfman, National Theatre
The clues are all there in the cast list. Each character is presented with their alma mater and professional title, a precise and telling shorthand. From the elegant and composed Sangeeta (Dinita Gohil), a product of St Paul’s Girls’ and Jesus College, Oxford, to the razor-sharp Isaac (Fode Simbo), ostensibly from the “Diversity Access Scheme” but later revealed to have been a day boy at Westminster, the details are meticulously drawn.
Till the Stars Come Down, Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Till the Stars Come Down is the hot ticket for a heatwave, but maybe one to avoid if you’ve got a family wedding coming up! Now settled into the Theatre Royal Haymarket with quiet confidence, Beth Steel’s bitingly humorous, unsettling and profoundly moving wedding-day drama blazes just as fiercely in its West End home.
Here We Are – Sondheim at the National Theatre
But oh, what joy. I loved this bonkers, brilliant play. As a final work, Here We Are feels like a surreal farewell letter – bold, strange, funny, and defiantly theatrical. It’s a gift to have it, and a gift to see it done so well.
Dear England reboot at National Theatre
You don’t need a love of football to enjoy Dear England. In the same way as you might binge-watch the football comedy series, Ted Lasso, this uplifting production will have you cheering the characters on.
Alterations at the National Theatre
Although patchy in parts, this production of Alterations is as good a chance as any to introduce yourself to Abbensetts’s lightning-paced prose. This play has the power to give you stitches, but it will be the tears that get you in the end.
Boys from the Blackstuff, Tour
Boys from the Blackstuff cannot be described as a fresh take on a familiar story, but paradoxically, it also relies on its audience having seen the original series to fully appreciate it. This production felt too caught up in the past to illuminate the present, though hard-hitting in parts, it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from history.
The Lehman Trilogy – Gillian Lynne Theatre
The Lehman Trilogy is a serious piece of theatre, albeit with plenty of humour, and this is a production that fizzes with energy and ideas. The text with its Old Testament lilt and musical flow has lost none of its relevance and the play still demands to be seen.
The Other Place, after Antigone, at The National Theatre
With a brand-new name and a star-studded cast, The Other Place certainly has makings of success, but this new production strays too far from the original. Unable to be one thing or the other, the play relies on its cast to pull it out of total absurdity.
Coriolanus at the Olivier, National Theatre
Lyndsey Turner’s production of Coriolanus is a play with Volumnia, Coriolanus’ mother, at its heart. Showing now at the Olivier National Theatre