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Bringing worlds together The Two Worlds of Charlie F
Malvern Theatres
****
The Two Worlds of Charlie F is shocking: it sets out to shock, to
disturb, to enlighten, to move and ultimately to engage us. It
aggressively confronts the audience with the harsh and brutal reality of
war and how it impacts the regular soldiers in our army. The piece centres on Charlie
Fowler and a handful of his wounded comrades, it explores their
experience of war in Afghanistan and its impact on them and their women. It takes us through the stages
of enlisting for army service, training, the initial shock of arriving
in the dry and merciless context of war, first confrontations or contact
with the enemy, the violence of injury, the transfer to hospital and
rehabilitation units in Birmingham and the painful process of overcoming
the traumas they experience physically and psychologically. The devastating experiences
leave an awful and often destructive legacy for the young men and their
relationships with girlfriends, wives and children. The play has been
written by Owen Sheers in collaboration with injured personnel and is
now performed by some of them. It explores the anger, the
violence and psychological breakdown of these characters in a way that
shocks and moves the audience in sympathy in equal measure. The opening scene illustrates
the way in which the production arrests the audience. Charlie Fowler has
arrived in a military hospital in Selly Oak, Birmingham, after being
blown up by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) in Afghanistan, he has
lost a leg, he is hallucinating and still thinks he is in the war zone. He sees the nurse, his fiancée
and friends as enemies threatening his life. He shouts and screams at
them, obscenities abound, he is in extreme trauma. This scene is followed by
introductions as he and his
This production is unique in
that it brings the military and the theatrical together. There are
genuine wounded veterans speaking to us and acting alongside
professional actors. The veterans bring a powerful authenticity to the
show, the actors add a professionalism to the performance. Charlie Fowler is played by
Cassidy Little, a Canadian in the Royal Marines, who provides the
central character among the wounded. Cassidy’s performance is excellent,
he has a strong and secure presence and he speaks with clarity. The other soldiers vary in
their clarity and technical skills as actors but they carry huge
conviction through their authenticity and consequently they engage our
sympathy as an audience very well. At times some of the comedy
fell a bit flat and the pace in some scenes flagged occasionally, but
the dramatic interest was well sustained by the varied use of
projection, song and dance routines and the intensely dramatic scenes
punctuating the show throughout. There were of course some very
moving moments: the telephone conversation between the Major and his
wife, when he is unable to say much of substance about his life at the
front, was very poignant. As he finishes the call he
observes: ‘Sometimes I think we say more with our silences than we do
with our words.’. Similarly the flashbacks experienced by the men when
they cannot get horrific images and experiences out of their minds are
haunting. As the refrain says, it is ‘Worse at night, always worse at
night.’ They are ‘scared to close their eyes, scared to put my head on
the pillow.’ The listing of psychological conditions and the medications
used underline the painfully slow process by which our soldiers recover. As the play draws to a close
Charlie Fowler talks to the audience about leaving the army. ‘One day
you’re in, the next you’re out.’ It’s a reference perhaps to the two
worlds of the title – life in the army and life beyond and outside the
army. However he goes on to say ‘Because it isn’t just about leaving, is
it? It’s about joining too, right? I mean all of us here…’ He is referring to the
veterans joining the regiment of the wounded down through the centuries
of human conflict. But there is also a sense that this production
invites us all to see ourselves as linked and engaged in the experiences
of our service personnel. They are a part of us and we
are a part of them. Their suffering is something we can and should in a
measure enter into. As Charlie says: ‘Because we don’t live in two
worlds, do we? We live in one.’ We are all a part of the human race. The
show has that impact on the audience, who choose to stand and applaud by
way of communicating their solidarity with those represented by the
military members of the cast. The show is a unique and
powerful expression of something we would do well to take time to
experience and acknowledge. It is hard-hitting and not for the
faint-hearted or very young!
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