The stage adaptation of Ken Kesey’s classic novel is revived at the Old Vic, but can’t escape its outdated handling of mental illness When Ken Kesey's psychiatric hospital-set novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest debuted in 1962, it was a bold countercultural swipe against grinding mid-century conformism – its radical message so heady that it sent Kesey off on a psychedelic bus tour of the states, fuelled by LSD-laced orange juice. In theory, Clint Dyer’s Old Vic revival of the 1963 stage