This May Hurt A Bit
Octagon Theatre, Bolton
4/5

There is a touch of nostalgia about Stella Feehily’s new play about the NHS, not for a golden era of the health service but a reminder of the powerful agit-prop theatre of the 1970s.

In that time, companies like 7:84 and Red Ladder were performing overtly political theatre in response to the reactionary policies of right-wing governments.

Feehily’s play, directed by Max Stafford Clark, takes the audience on a journey from 1948 and the creation of the NHS to the passing of the Health and Social Care Act in 2011.

It opens with Aneurin Bevan making the moral case for a national health service and warning that it would be a continuous battle to maintain it.

The scene switches to a Whitehall mandarin advising the current Prime Minister that the government’s health Bill is total “bollocks” before going on to provide him with a glib soundbite about putting clinicians at the heart of commissioning and empowering patients.

The next two hours, an excellent exposé of the destruction of the NHS by successive governments, is told through a series of sketches. We see Iris — a lovely performance from Stephanie Cole, with just the right amount of anger, sympathy and pathos — negotiating her way through the under-resourced health system following a temporary loss of memory.

The picture emerges of a service striving to deliver care despite the Tory wrecking ball swinging ever faster.

Throughout, there are short interludes detailing the destruction. A weather forecaster unfurls a chart showing the storms brewing from the savage cuts to health services across the country and two financiers detail the PFI scam sucking money from the NHS. The scheme started by Margaret Thatcher in the early 1990s was perfected under Blair and finessed by Osborne — financial scandal that dwarfs even the banking crisis.

This is an unashamedly political play. There is nothing subtle about it and Feehily tells it as it is and gives no pretence to balanced arguments. A plea to the nation to get angry, despite its urgent and serious message it is also very funny.

Catch it at the excellent Bolton Octagon who’ve co-produced the play with the Out Of Joint company, or on tour. It’s a call to arms to fight the poison that will destroy our health care system.

Runs until April 5, box office: (01204) 520-661, then tours, details: www.outofjoint.co.uk