Theatre review: Nye

The second major show about the founding of the National Health Service currently playing in London, Tim Price's Nye ends up pretty much where Lucy Kirkwood's The Human Body began: With the NHS about to be born out of a seemingly impossible, looming deadline, and Britain's doctors only at the last minute putting their voices behind this complete shakeup of their profession. In fact the play seems to squeeze this major event in with almost as much urgency, serving at it does predominantly as a broader biography of the Welsh politician whose brainchild the service was, and who pushed it through opposition from all sides. We meet Aneurin Bevan (The Actor Michael Sheen) in need of the service himself, on his deathbed - though he doesn't know that - on an NHS hospital ward.

Theatre review: The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead

To complete the Homeric theme of the Swanamaker's pre-season we have writer Simon Armitage and director Nick Bagnall, who gave us a play based on the Iliad in 2014, now returning to tackle the Odyssey. I wasn't sure what to expect as I found their take on The Last Days of Troy a somewhat redundant addition to the many other versions of the story, but for The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead Armitage has found a new angle and explored it well. In modern-day Britain, a few weeks before a general election, Smith (Colin Tierney,) a minister popular with the people but not necessarily so with his own party, wants to go home to Cumbria for his son's 18th birthday. But the Prime Minister (Simon Dutton) co-opts him to show his face at a World Cup qualifier in Istanbul. England win the match but in the aftermath Smith and his friends get caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time - attempting to break up a violent brawl, a photo taken from the wrong angle makes it look like the minister dealt a killer blow, and it goes viral.

Theatre review: The Houses of York and Lancaster (Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

Nick Bagnall's revival of Shakespeare's Henry VI plays continues with The Houses of York and Lancaster (actually the original full title was The First Part of the Contention Between the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster but the Globe have clearly balanced authenticity with common sense.) Having started to stand up to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester in Harry the Sixth, King Henry (Graham Butler) inadvertently opened the door for his enemies to get rid of the Lord Protector once and for all. Humphrey's young wife (Beatriz Romilly) will be his downfall, and when she's caught dabbling in black magic her husband is forced to stand down. Emboldened by his relationship with the new queen, the Duke of Suffolk goes one step too far and has Humphrey killed. Soon he too is dead, and the power vacuum around the weak king leads the Duke of York (Brendan O'Hea) to finally show his hand as a rival contender for England's throne.