Grief, it is said, is the price we pay for having loved. And the silver thread of grief which laces Jenny Lee’s (Louise Collins’) opening and closing monologues about the death of her husband and fellow rebel with a cause Aneurin “Nye” Bevan (Gareth John Bale) are testament to their labour of love. Her expression of which, at one point, literally disarms him of pulling the trigger on a couple of prying hacks.

Vermin, he cries. Rats. Charges also levelled at the hypocritical Tory party who initially slow-clapped his free at the point of need health proposals yet later high-fived themselves by claiming all the credit; and also towards his beloved Labour party who by moving from the Left to the Centre (if you stay in the middle of the road, Lee cautioned, you get knocked down) voted through Tory policies which, according to Bevan, measured a person’s worth in pounds, shillings and pence.

However the grief expressed by Lee was not just about the passing of her “born old, died too young” husband (the owl to her lark, the Marxist matador to her Socialist senorita), but also at what more he could have done to help the men, women and children from the mining communities into which they were both born. He in Tredegar in Gwent, she in Lochgelly in Fife. A sentiment echoed by many in the left after the death of John Smith.

It was a personal grief, too, for the sacrifices she made in her own political career which she surrendered to support his. A decision based on her belief that as the leader of the left he was best placed to deliver socialism to Britain. But support him she did, with every sinew of her being: writing and rewriting his speeches to ensure they packed a stronger punch. A tactic which drew charges of being the “dark angel” on his shoulder who like Lady Macbeth poured poison into his ear.

Directed by Geinor Styles (artistic director of Theatr na nÓg who co-produce with Aneurin Leisure) and written by Meredydd Barker (who was short-listed for Best Playwright in the English Language at the 2018 Wales Theatre Awards), Nye & Jennie is an intelligent, thought-provoking and towards the end moving mix of the political and the personal.

There are no barnstorming speeches in the style of Bevan’s rousing oratory. Instead, Styles, with great subtlety and wit (“I don’t mind you dressing as a prostitute, but I do mind you dressing as an unsuccessful one”), weaves their socialist views into the fabric of everyday conversation, with references to women being deprived of their pensions and the unemployed developing footsore due to the distances they are forced to travel for interviews being sadly as relevant today as then. Which forces the question: how much has changed, how far have we come?

Politics aside, what shines in this production as bright as the stars above the Welsh Valleys are the performances by Gareth John Bale and Louise Collins, the latter of whom fleshes out the forgotten woman of British politics who for so long lived in her husband’s shadow. A woman of great principle and passion who not only became the youngest member of the House of Commons and the first Minister of the Arts, but spearheaded the creation of the Open University (OU).

And it is a phrase from her speech at the opening of the first OU Library in April 1973 which best describes her legacy: “nothing but the best is good enough”. Not just the best for herself, but more so for the people she represented. The many, not the few.

Peter Callaghan
Latest posts by Peter Callaghan (see all)