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The National Health
The National Health
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jack Gold
Written by	Peter Nichols
Based on	The National Health; by Peter Nichols
Produced by	Terry Glinwood; Ned Sherrin
Starring	Lynn Redgrave; Colin Blakely; Eleanor Bron; Donald Sinden; Jim Dale
Cinematography	John Coquillon
Edited by	Ralph Sheldon
Music by	Carl Davis
Color process	Eastmancolor
Production; company	Virgin Films
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	6 March 1973 (London); 10 August 1979 (USA);
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The National Health is a 1973 British black comedy film directed by Jack Gold and starring Lynn Redgrave, Colin Blakely and Eleanor Bron.^[1]^[2] It is based on the 1969 play The National Health by Peter Nichols, in which the staff struggle to cope in a NHS hospital.

Plot

The film satirically interweaves the story of a depressing and poorly-equipped National Health Service hospital with a fantasy hospital which exists in a soap-opera world where all the equipment is new and patients are miraculously cured – although the only "patients" seen are doctors or nurses who are themselves part of the soap opera plots. In the real hospital, the patients die while the out-of-touch administrators focus on impressing foreign visitors.

Cast

Lynn Redgrave as Nurse Sweet / Nurse Betty Martin
Colin Blakely as Edward Loach
Eleanor Bron as Sister McFee / Sister Mary MacArthur
Donald Sinden as Mr. Carr / Senior Surgeon Boyd
Jim Dale as Mr. Barnet / Dr. Neil Boyd
Sheila Scott Wilkinson as Nurse Powell / Staff Nurse Cleo Norton
Neville Aurelius as Leyland / Monk
Gillian Barge as Dr. Bird
George Browne as The Chaplain
Patience Collier as the lady visitor
Jumoke Debayo as Nurse Lake
Robert Gillespie as Tyler
John Hamill as Kenny
Don Hawkins as Les
James Hazeldine as student doctor
Bob Hoskins as Desmond Foster
David Hutcheson as Mr Mackie
Mervyn Johns as Doctor Rees
Bert Palmer as Mr Flagg
Maureen Pryor as the matron
Richie Stewart as mortuary attendant
Clive Swift as Mervyn Ash
Graham Weston as Michael

Production

Producer Ned Sherrin said that he wanted Michael Blakemore, who had directed the play on stage, to direct the film but Columbia would not approve him.^[3]

Filming location

The hospital scenes were shot at Red Barracks, Woolwich, which stood in as the fictional Princess Maria of Battenberg Hospital.^[4]

Reception

According to Sherrin, the film "did well" in England but was not released in the US for another decade.^[3]

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "The National Health is M.A.S.H. without the mayhem – an unsentimental, uncomfortably comic and barely exaggerated portrayal of British welfare medicine, the most well-meaning on earth, but dispiritingly undermanned, depersonalised, and bogged down in bedpans and logistics. "Here in England", observes Jim Dale's lugubrious ward orderly, "we have as high a standard of dying as anywhere in the free world". The only reminder, in fact, that the nearest one usually gets to this kind of comment is Carry On Nurse is the presence of Jim Dale, though that is meant to be far from disparaging: he all but steals the picture with his portrait of cheerfully cynical vulgarity, relishing Nichols' best lines ("One slip", he quips as he shaves a patient in preparation for an abdominal operation, "and Bob's your auntie!") and neatly rounding out the role with the cold sneer he gives to departing patients over whom he has affectionately fussed. The acting throughout is flawless, with perhaps the best moments provided by Clive Swift's basket-weaving ulcer victim, Colin Blakely's grumbling amnesiac, Lynn Redgrave's devoted, put-upon nurse, and Donald Sinden – in one of several double cameos – as a brash consultant ("Your bum any better ?") and soap opera surgeon ("To err is hooman")."^[5]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Acerbic comedy from a National Theatre play which mixes tragedy and farce into a kind of Carry on Dying."^[6]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 3/5 stars, writing: "Director Jack Gold assembles some sprightly set pieces and fine actors (Donald Sinden, Lynn Redgave, Jim Dale) who give real clout to the sometimes contrived satire."^[7]

References

^ "The National Health". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
^ "The National Health (1973)". Archived from the original on 17 January 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
^ ^a ^b Sherrin, Ned (2006). Ned Sherrin : the autobiography. Time Warner. p. 214.
^ "The National Health". London Location. Retrieved 15 August 2024.
^ "The National Health". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 40 (468): 80. 1 January 1973 – via ProQuest.
^ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 716. ISBN 0586088946.
^ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 649. ISBN 9780992936440.