I went to see Nye at the National Theatre full of excited expectation, and left disappointed and deflated.

All credit to the NT for putting it on right now.  The relevance of Aneurin Bevan’s story in this election year screams through the narrative. The opening, in a busy and well-equipped hospital ward, is a graphic illustration of what he created, and our generation of politicians have failed to sustain.  Later, an angry Nye, surveying starvation caused by the 1931 version of austerity, tells the House of Commons: “When the banks are in trouble, we bail them out.”  And there’s a tremendously effective scene in a public library, graphically showing the transformative effect of this victim of modern austerity.

And I may be hyper-critical.  I have written a major biography and a play about Clem Attlee, the Prime Minster who appointed Nye to create the health service, and a short life of Nye himself. *  It might make me less tolerant than most of a dramatist’s urge to tamper with the facts for dramatic purposes.