Allelujah! by Alan Bennett (Bridge Theatre)

Part of the review from Variety

Sums this play up for me

“But the play is too far removed from reality for its satire to sting. Bennett’s characters are stick men, straw men and ciphers, each a symbol of some British virtue or vice. “Allelujah!” is not without its moments — it can swivel from comedy to poignancy in a flash, bawdy jokes swallowed up by coughing fits — but its hospital has all the credibility of a political slogan on the side of a bus. Rather, it’s an amalgamation of social and structural ills — from overpaid, self-important execs to unpaid interns with no self-respect — that exists entirely to confirm Bennett’s case, not to reflect the true state of the NHS. You sense the playwright, at 84, has swapped research for partisan reportage and maudlin memories of a past that never was.”

This hits the nail on the head

This NHS Bennett wants
Never existed
And never will

Making the play irrelevant and lacking any credibility

We can write a play about the NHS we think we want
Or the one we are able to realistically provide

One of the activities in some care homes for the elderly is dancing.  And they often pipe in music from the 40's, 50's and 60's.  That scene was a horrifying thought for me as I kept fantasising about myself in such a care home being forced to pogo to siouxie and the Banshees etc.

I look forward to being just as out of step with my peer group at 90 as I was at 19...!

Saw this yesterday evening, a refreshing journey once more into Alan Bennettland (just across the Pennines from Victoria Woodland), a place that has its own reality and where Northerners get to be themselves without fear of being referred to as ‘typical’. I actually now live in the area that Bennett writes about here (Pennines, West ‘Riding’) and have had cause to visit the local hospital recently (broke my toe, dropped a box containing an unbuilt Ikea bookcase onto it). No, it’s not what exists but this is theatre where everything is a fabrication and Bennett uses the surface to comment on the deeper malaise, that of division and loss. It also reflects the people that I know and grew up with, parents and long gone grandparents; sometimes you need to be reminded of your past and inevitable future so that you can measure your own.

Like ‘Home, I’m Darling’, which I saw the previous day, this is a lovely play for a summer evening, witty, heatffelt and warm. One extra link, my sister’s doctor at one point was Harold Shipman, so one part of the plot is even closer to home. She said he was ‘really nice’.....

Could this transfer into the west end? Some good playhouses for it

I am rather bored by the "blah blah blah disparaging remark about (insert Yorkshire town)" joke format; Bennett uses it about six times in this play, and while the audience seemed to lap it up I find it tired and desperate.

The play itself is like a tick-box exercise to cover as many of the newsworthy scandals that the NHS have faced in recent times - and I thought it suffered for being so greedy and unsubtle. Having said that, I thought there was plenty to admire and appreciate - with some of the performances truly excellent (and some definitely not).

Also, I will always remember the very short scene in which a young doctor grinds his groin at a nurse in an attempt to secure a bed for a patient as one of the most incongruous and awkward moments to have to sit through. It was so short if you had blinked you could have missed it. I wish I had blinked.

its actuallyNOT a s... play.Its a very entertaining evening and well worth anyones time who wants to be amused and also moved.It is by no means a great play but still one worth considering.

Fantastic! Look forward to it.

This didn't really work for me. It just felt too scattergun in its targets, as if Bennett decided he wanted to write something about ageing, and the NHS - oh, and I'll have a go at immigration policies too - without really knowing what he wanted to say about any of them.

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy aspects of it, although as @baladorn mentioned above, there's a horrible tendency to get a quick laugh by just mentioning "somewhere up North", which by the end just felt like a metropolitan audience laughing at the idea that there could be a sophisticated clinic in Hull or gay clubs in Barnsley. The management consultant didn't ring true to me, and I felt that the father/son relationship was clunky and not believable. Oh and by the time we got halfway through the second half I probably outwardly groaned at yet another song and dance number... I got the impression a lot of the audience was laughing *at* the seniors which rather negates the desire for respect.

In the end,

And the pedant in me has to point out that

Hated it.