Latest news with #Nye
Spectator
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
A bland, reverential portrait of a socialist martyr: Nye at the Olivier Theatre reviewed
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.
Time Out
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Michael Sheen (Aneurin Bevan)
The time is once again Nye, as Martin Sheen returns to the National Theatre to reprise firebrand politician and NHS founder, Aneurin Bevan, in Tim Price's play, after Rufus Norris's production originally debuted last year. The state of the country's health and that of Nye himself are intwined from the start, as we open on a huge chest x-ray projected onto hospital-green curtains behind the bed-ridden deputy leader of the Labour Party. It's July 1960. His anxious wife Jennie Lee (Sharon Small) and childhood friend Archie Lush (Jason Hughes) are by his side and his doctor is concerned. We're here, it's increasingly clear, for the end of his life. Plunging us into Nye's unconscious, Price gives us a dream-like portrait of his life, as Nye recalls its events in neuron-like bursts. There are parallels between the coal miner-turned-politician challenging schoolroom bullying in Tredegar, his working-class Welsh hometown, in the early 1900s, to upsetting the members' club snobbery of Parliament as a new MP. Paule Constable's ever-shifting lighting design melds beautifully with Steven Hoggett and Jess Williams playful choreography, snatching feather-light moments of humour from the darkness. The playful and somnambulant tone of Norris's production perfectly suits the portrait of a man whose sometimes bulldozing lack of subtlety was one of his defining traits. Sheen is predictably great at combining Nye's burning sense of belief in welfare for all and his irascibility within a single scene. As we skip around his timeline, Sheen, clad in pyjamas, has the bewilderment of a child trying to make sense of the world. There's also a moving performance from Sharon, as Jennie, full of angles and edges. She captures the sharp, internalised grief at the imminent end of their open marriage alongside a deep-rooted frustration that her own political career became subsumed in supporting the rise of his legend. This knotty emotional dimension is the line that threads through the Nye's-eye view of cartoon-like elitist politicians, including Tony Jayawardena's gleefully unlikeable Winston Churchill. If the first half of the play is about a contrarian child-turned-adult, who uses books to overcome his stammer and become a committed socialist, fighting for the rights of coal miners, the second is about the compromises leading to Nye's greatest legacy: the formation of the NHS in 1948. Price crafts a fascinating story of a man whose principles were his greatest strength but also something he would mould for a goal. This production sometimes veers close to sentimentalism as we reach the formation of the NHS but always pull back to hit the audience somewhere real and powerful. At a time when Nye's vision of a society that takes care of its weakest and most vulnerable feels like it's being chipped away daily by career politicians, this play is a rallying cry for the power of empathy and bloody-minded humanitarianism.
New York Post
10-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Bill Nye says US climate crisis is a reason deadly Texas floods were so destructive: ‘Exactly what was predicted'
Bill Nye 'The Science Guy' said Wednesday that fossil fuel companies and the U.S. Congress's neglect of the climate crisis are a big reason the flooding in central Texas was so destructive. During the latest episode of CNN's 'Inside Politics,' Nye argued that one of the main ways to prevent what host Dana Bash reported was an increasing frequency of 'once in 100-year' storms is to ban fossil fuels. Advertisement 'So, 'What are we going to do about it?' is the ancient question. And it would be to stop burning fossil fuels. When you're in a hole, stop digging, and so on,' he said. More than 100 people, including children and counselors at a girls' camp, were killed in central Texas in flash flooding that began last week. The National Weather Service (NWS) sent several flash flood warnings early Friday morning, followed by several flash flood emergency notices. Critics of President Donald Trump alleged that his federal staffing and budget cuts prevented the NWS from being adequately prepared for the disaster — an accusation that the White House and Trump allies have rejected. Advertisement 5 Fossil fuel companies and the U.S. Congress's neglect of the climate crisis are reasons the flooding in central Texas was so destructive, Bill Nye said. CNN 5 'So, 'What are we going to do about it?' is the ancient question. And it would be to stop burning fossil fuels. When you're in a hole, stop digging, and so on,' Nye said. CNN Other liberals have called out their own side for politicizing the tragedy and said NWS cuts weren't a factor. Nye blamed the government as well, saying that it has been convinced by fossil fuel companies to ignore climate change, which he believes has made these disasters worse. Advertisement 'But the fossil fuel industry has been very successful in getting organizations like the U.S. Congress to think that it's really not happening,' he said. 5 More than 100 people, including children and counselors at a girls' camp, were killed in central Texas in flash flooding that began last week. AP The media personality claimed earlier in the segment that, because of climate change, these natural disasters are going to keep happening. 'This is exactly what was predicted. It's very difficult to tie any one weather event to climate change. However, the warm weather events are actually easier to tie to climate change,' he said. 'But it will happen again, to your point.' Advertisement Follow The Post's coverage on the deadly Texas flooding Nye continued, noting that 'warning systems' to alert people about these disasters exist and can be implemented successfully. However, the real issue, he claimed, was getting the U.S. to take climate change seriously. Bash followed up by noting the Trump administration's efforts to eliminate cuts to fossil fuel production in the U.S., suggesting that this has contributed to the problem. 5 The National Weather Service (NWS) sent several flash flood warnings early Friday morning, followed by several flash flood emergency notices. AP 5 Damaged vehicles and debris are seen roped off near the banks of the Guadalupe River after flooding in Ingram, Texas, on July 4. AP Nye acknowledged her point and said the federal government needs to reverse course.' So, the opportunity still exists, but we do need to turn things around,' he declared.
Voice of Belady
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Voice of Belady
The passing of the global order
Mahmoud Mohieldin How should the countries of the Global South react to the ongoing changes in the international order? Those most aware of the end of the so-called global order are its own architects. They are like the owner of a football club who invites other teams to play on a field of his own design. He also hires a referee who is told to implement rules that he has designed as well. The teams play match after match, which always end with the victory of the owner's team, because its members know the pitch better and the rules work in their favour. However, then the other teams grow more familiar with the terrain, master the rules, and begin to win some matches. Initially, the owner doesn't mind, as long as he retains the upper hand. But when the competition gets tough and he can no longer ensure victory, he grabs the ball and leaves. These new outcomes were never my intention, he shouts, as he fires the referee, obliterates the lines on the field, tears up the rules, and makes up new ones that ensure his team comes out on top again. Of course, the real world is much more complex than this example might have us believe. One main difference is that the other teams in the game of nations are not about to wait for the master of the old order to bestow on them a new one that has been rigged in his favour. Instead, they will pursue alternative and more equitable arrangements to facilitate trade and investment and to settle any disputes that arise. At the same time, they will try to contain the anger of the owner of the formerly dominant team. They have too much to lose from his attempts to perpetuate his hegemony by creating friction and lashing out against all and sundry with combinations of soft and hard power, while imagining he is clever enough to avoid getting burned by his own ruses. While we are on the subject of the use of power in international relations, let's turn to an article by the late Harvard professor Joseph Nye published just days before his death in the April edition of the journal African Economy. Writing on 'The Future of World Order,' Nye noted how the end of the Cold War in 1991 had given rise to a unipolar world order that allowed for the strengthening of existing international institutions and agreements and the creation of new ones affirming a rules-based approach to the management of international relations. In the role of referees in the global game were the Bretton Woods institutions the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, among others. However, Nye writes, 'even before Trump, some analysts believed that this American order was coming to an end. The twenty-first century had brought another shift in the distribution of power, usually described as the rise (or more accurately, the recovery) of Asia.' Asia's gains have come more at the expense of Europe than the US, which still represents a quarter of global GDP, as it has since the 1970s, Nye writes. While the Chinese economy has grown considerably, it has not yet surpassed its US rival, and while the Chinese defence industry has progressed by leaps and bounds, China still lags behind the US in overall military weight, alliances, and technology. However, the crucial point with which Nye concludes his article, which draws on both his academic expertise and his experience as a former US assistant secretary of defence, is that 'if the international order is eroding, America's domestic politics are as much of a cause as China's rise.' He leaves readers with the open question as to 'whether we are entering a whole new period of American decline' triggered by the current Trump administration's attacks on the country's institutions and alliances, or whether the current situation 'will prove to be another cyclical dip' from which the US will recover after it hits rock bottom. He suggests that we may not know the answer to this before a new president takes office in 2029. Fate did not grant Nye the chance to see what a post-Trump presidency might look like. However, I doubt the rest of the world will hold its breath until US voters cast their ballots depending on whatever the American mood is at the time. In the interim, we can expect more tit-for-tat in the ongoing global tariff skirmishes. The latest round of these was kicked off on 2 April by the blanket unilateral tariff hikes US President Donald Trump declared on what he called 'Liberation Day.' It ended on 9 April – 'Freeze Day' – when he suspended those tariffs for 90 days because the international financial markets had been severely rocked by the escalating trade war. Since then, various parties have been trying to work out better trade agreements with the US or at least terms that are not as bad as they could have been. The UK managed to strike such a deal, and the European Union is working on one. As for the countries of the Global South, such as the Arab and African nations, perhaps they will heed the advice to increase the added value of their sources of natural and mineral wealth by processing them domestically instead of persisting with the low-yield trade relations based on exporting raw materials and primary goods. They could achieve the desired shift by encouraging companies to invest in domestic manufacturing activities. Working in favour of this is the US' rush to secure critical raw materials for its advanced technological industries, particularly given how China has already made inroads into sourcing such materials, especially in Africa. On precisely this point, economists Vera Songwe and Witney Schneidman believe that the US, in its new trade agreements with Africa, should prioritise opportunities to increase manufacturing partnerships in order to compete with China, which has had a head start in the continent. More important than the foregoing is how the countries of the Global South, having recognised the collapse of the old order, manage the process of development and progress by focusing on people, economic diversification, digital transformation, investment facilitation, and data revolution.
The Herald Scotland
06-07-2025
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
Aneurin Donald equals record for fastest Twenty20 half-century in Derbyshire win
Yorkshire had posted a competitive-looking target of 200 but Donald had different ideas. Simply ridiculous!!!! Nye equals the Blast record fastest fifty – 13 balls – in just the fourth over!! 👏 Watch LIVE ⤵️ — Derbyshire CCC (@DerbyshireCCC) July 6, 2025 He teed off and brought up his 50 in the fourth over. He went on to make 85 off 30 balls, hitting seven sixes and eight fours. Nottinghamshire secured a nervy one-wicket win off the penultimate ball against Leicestershire. Rishi Patel (51) and Sol Budinger (56) helped the Foxes to 188 for two in their 20 overs. Nottinghamshire were steady in their reply with Joe Clarke hitting 50 before a flurry of wickets put them in danger until number 10 Dillon Pennington and number 11 Farham Ahmed saw them over the line with the 119th delivery. That is a derby-day victory on home soil for your Notts Outlaws!#OutlawsAssemble | 📺 — Notts Outlaws (@TrentBridge) July 6, 2025 Ned Leonard and Andy Gorvin did the damage for Glamorgan as they beat Kent by six wickets. Leonard took four for 26 and Gorvin four for 17 as Kent were restricted to 118 for nine from their 20 overs. The Welsh county made light work of their chase, knocking it off in the 12th over, with Kiran Carlson top-scoring on 34.
