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Mark Thomas
Check Up: Our NHS at 70
Arcola Theatre
London E8
NO MORNING STAR reader will need reminding of the detrimental impact that a lack of funding, PFI disasters and a decline in our general health has had on the NHS.
And I’m pretty sure that goes for many other people who don't read these pages. Yet it’s an issue that we cannot ignore — after all as Mark Thomas reminds us, every single person in this country will at some point or another will need its service — so, therefore, we need to do everything in our power to change things.
Which is why it was pleasing — if not surprising — to see comedian and lifetime left-wing activist Thomas focus on the NHS for his latest project.
Our beloved health service has just marked its 70th birthday, so Thomas, pondering what kind of state he and the 100-year-old NHS will be in 30 years’ time, took himself off to his GP, who laid out a range of possible disorders he could succumb to in his elderly age.
With this in mind, he has spent the last few months on residencies in the wards which would deal with his hypothetical future illness.
The show is the outcome of those residencies: his experience of being chaperoned by doctors, surgeons, nurses around A&Es, as well as showing us snippets of his in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals, a certain pro-privatisation former health secretary (but I won't spoil the outcome of that interview) punctuated with humorous anecdotes — and it is actually very funny at times — along with some painfully poignant moments.
His delivery on stage is fast-paced, frantic and well executed. At times, watching the show is pretty exhausting — it’s almost as if we’re involved in the heart-stopping action in one of the wards he visited. And there are certain moments when Thomas works himself up into such a frenzy over depressing stats and PFI failings you worry that he might just keel over there and then.
No doubt many — the rightwingers, particularly — will complain that Thomas is harping on about something that we already know and his solution is something we've heard before. Yes we do and we have, but isn’t it fortunate we have someone like him to keep hammering away at it until we’re on the right track to rescuing this vital service?
Runs until November 3. Box office www.arcolatheatre.com
