A sharp scratch

Abstract

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is by almost any measure an extraordinary organisation. In 2012–13 its budget was £105 billion; it employs some 146 000 doctors and sees more than 1 million patients every 36 hours. The British look to the NHS to bring their children into the world, to treat their maladies, and to ease their time of dying. But the NHS is more than just a health service. It's an embodiment of high ideals: that health care should be universally available, and that the costs of this should be shared. In an ever more individualistic world, this expression of community is admirable, but it has sometimes attracted opposition. The NHS can also evoke powerful feelings in its patients and its staff: of gratitude and pride but also of anxiety and disappointment. This May Hurt a Bit, by playwright Stella Feehily, puts these emotions on the stage. It's an eclectic, politically charged affair—not unlike the NHS itself. At its heart is a family drama: Iris James (Stephanie Cole), an elderly family matriarch, falls ill and is taken to the geriatric ward of the Harrington, her local hospital. Iris and her family find the ward to be a place of barely contained chaos. There's blood on the ceiling, faeces in the shower, and a single nurse struggling to keep pace with her patients' needs. Iris's middle-aged son, Nicholas (Brian Protheroe), and daughter, Mariel (Jane Wymark), bicker about transferring their mother to private care, whilst Mariel's American surgeon husband assists a patient in the absence of hospital staff. An exploration of the pressures placed on the NHS by recent market-orientated government reform punctuates Iris's story, bringing moments of comedy, music, and song. The NHS appears anthropomorphised as an old lady, reminiscing about past Prime Ministers as if erstwhile lovers. Winston Churchill and Aneurin Bevan look on, resurrected to debate current NHS policy. Statistics feature too: graphs illustrate the shortcomings of Private Finance Initiative schemes and data on hospital closures are read out as if a meteorological report. Feehily gained much experience of the NHS when her husband, and the play's director, Max Stafford-Clark, was admitted to hospital with a stroke. One wonders how much this familiarity has informed her writing. For her sake I hope she has taken some artistic licence. Unfortunately, I cannot dismiss completely as invention what transpires on her fictional hospital ward: much of what she writes could be lifted from the Francis Inquiry on the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The NHS has clearly failed some people very badly in recent years. Fortunately, it does still offer a sound service to most of the millions it treats, but how long will this continue? Feehily is unconvinced that the NHS's current political masters can be trusted to run it in any way other than into the ground. I wish this play well, and I hope it inspires other artists to join the fray. It's ambitious, well informed, and the cast are spirited, with each actor taking multiple roles. However if its approach sounds unsubtle, then that's because it is. At times the tone is rather hectoring and much of the characterisation relies on political stereotypes. Thus we find naturalised American Mariel, who finds socialised medicine barbaric, set against Nicholas, her Guardian-reading NHS-supporting brother. Trusting the audience to withstand a little ambiguity would have been welcome. Despite the shortcomings of her NHS hospital stay, Iris refuses to opt for private health care. Knowledge of the world before socialised medicine and the privations of World War 2 are enough to convince her that the NHS is an idea worth fighting for. To her this institution requires understanding and our support. And even our faith. This May Hurt a BitAn Out of Joint production by playwright Stella Feehily, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. Touring in the UK in 2014 at: Everyman Theatre Cheltenham, April 19; Oxford Playhouse, April 22–26; Bristol Old Vic, April 29–May 3; Liverpool Playhouse, May 7–10; St James Theatre, London, May 14–June 21 http://www.outofjoint.co.uk/prods/productions/this-may-hurt-a-bit.html This May Hurt a Bit An Out of Joint production by playwright Stella Feehily, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. Touring in the UK in 2014 at: Everyman Theatre Cheltenham, April 19; Oxford Playhouse, April 22–26; Bristol Old Vic, April 29–May 3; Liverpool Playhouse, May 7–10; St James Theatre, London, May 14–June 21 http://www.outofjoint.co.uk/prods/productions/this-may-hurt-a-bit.html