A bland, reverential portrait of a socialist martyr: Nye at the Olivier Theatre reviewed

Spectator

4 days ago

The memory of Nye Bevan is being honoured at the National Theatre. Having made his name as a Marxist firebrand, Nye was quick to take advantage of the privileges enjoyed by the governing classes whom he affected to despise. He entered parliament in 1929 and began to hang around the Commons bar plying female MPs with double gins. His future wife, Jennie Lee, referred to him as a 'rutting stag'. Was he a serial bed-hopper as well as a problem drinker? It's hard to tell from this bland, reverential portrait of a socialist martyr.
The director, Rufus Norris, adds song and dance routines, requiring the services of two choreographers, as if to suggest that Nye was a gifted crooner with a great pair of pins as well. Is that true? Or just part of the packaging?
Michael Sheen enacts the phases of Nye's life without stretching himself too much. The stammering schoolboy turns into the angry teenage rebel ranting about injustice and exploitation. Later he challenges the medical establishment and forces private doctors to join the NHS by 'stuffing their mouths with gold'. This line is airbrushed from the script perhaps because it reveals that Nye was a worldly, corruptible character who understood the power of money.
Sheen is compelled to play the role in a suit of stripy pink pyjamas with double cuffs and three beautifully tailored pockets. He looks like a streak of toothpaste. And this daft costume erases Nye as a political heavy-weight. He bumbles around the stage with the disorientated air of a lunatic looking for his padded cell.
In the closing scenes, he succumbs to ill health but instead of having to wait for treatment he's allocated a huge bed in what looks like a private room. No queues for Nye. Hospital staff fight for the honour of giving him a spoonful of medicine. A flirtatious nurse reveals that she once saw him deliver an emotional speech in Nottingham which prompted several audience members to renounce their office jobs and enter the medical profession. Nye beams munificently at the wonder of his creation. The play's supportive message comes across loud and clear. The NHS works like a dream if you happen to have founded it. Otherwise, join the queue.
Noughts & Crosses is a dystopian melodrama set in a futuristic Britain with an all-black government. The new rulers create civil strife by imposing racial segregation and restoring the custom of public hangings.
The writer, Malorie Blackman, and her director, Tinuke Craig, evidently take a dim view of black politicians and consider them far more dangerous and despotic than their white counterparts. Some will condemn the play's bigotry. Others may be tempted to applaud it. The script, perhaps predictably, seems to regard most human beings as aggressive and intellectually limited. Nearly every character is an angry, foul-mouthed, violent halfwit.
The show opens with Ryan, a pointlessly irascible father, welcoming the news that his brainy son, Callum, has won a place at a decent school. Ryan encourages Callum to work hard and to pass his exams. Then, a puzzling twist. Ryan joins a terrorist network and plants a rucksack full of fireworks in a busy shopping centre. His plan is to scare people rather than cause injury. Bang. The rucksack explodes. Seven shoppers lie dead. Ryan is understandably disappointed that his prank went wrong but he accepts the court's sentence of death with a stoical shrug.
Callum is forced into hiding which throws his romance with Persephone, the daughter of a cabinet minister, into turmoil. Persephone is the only likeable character here, but she rambles brainlessly like a beauty-pageant winner. She wants everyone be nice to everyone else, and she dreams of a world in which love is more important than buying stuff from shops.
This coarse, reductive and demoralising play is designed by Colin Richmond, whose set resembles a burned-out steelworks. A perfect choice for the themes of abuse and criminal violence.
Every scene seems to involve a bunch of ghastly characters bawling insults at each other while explaining the plot. School bullies torment their victims in the cafeteria. Family rows descend into punches and slaps. A random suicide is thrown in for good measure. In the nastiest moment, Persephone is kidnapped by a gang of men who stab her for fun. If a recording of this scene were discovered on the phone of a teenage boy, he'd be accused of 'toxic masculinity' and transferred to the authorities for re-education.
The show ends with a public hanging which offers a strange lesson to the audience: if a principled terrorist dies for a noble cause he deserves to be worshipped as a hero. The only purpose of this show is to spread division and hate. Luckily, the propaganda won't get through. It's too boring.