From ‘Endeavour’ to the resurrection of Nurse Ratched: Why we love a prequel

With the success of Netflix’s resurrection of Nurse Ratched comes a question almost as old as Hollywood itself: why are we so obsessed with the story before a story? David Barnett investigates

Sarah Paulson as Nurse Ratched in the new Netflix series (Netflix)

Nurse Ratched appears on the very first page of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and her presence looms large over both the rest of the book and the 1975 film adaptation.

She is the bête noire of Randle Patrick McMurphy, rebellious inmate of the Salem State Hospital (played so memorably by Jack Nicholson in the movie), the head nurse who rules the mental hospital with an iron fist covered not so much by a velvet glove, but vibrant nail polish.

Known to the inmates as Big Nurse, Ratched — given the name Mildred in the film — is introduced in Kesey’s novel through the narrator “Chief” Bromden thus: “Her face is smooth, calculated, and precision-made, like an expensive baby doll, skin like flesh-coloured enamel, blend of white and cream and baby-blue eyes, small nose, pink little nostrils — everything working together except the colour on her lips and fingernails, and the size of her bosom. A mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would otherwise have been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about it.”