Conflicting emotions of war

Falklands Sound

Finborough Theatre, SW10

TO COMMEMORATE the 20th anniversary of the Falklands war, and perhaps to foreshadow our involvement in another overseas conflict, Louise Page's 1983 play Falkland Sound has been revived at the Finborough.

Twenty years ago it was staged at Max Stafford-Clark's Royal Court theatre - and, sure enough, it's every bit the peacenik rallying call that its pedigree would suggest.

The play is little more than an edited staging of the letters and poems of one David Tinker, who was killed in June 1982 on the HMS Glamorgan, while serving in the Falklands. We see his father, Hugh (Simon Wright), sifting through the letters in a cardboard box, while David (Edward Jaspers) perkily recites them on the other side of the stage. The correspondence traces the 25-year-old David's journey from school to naval college, then from fresh-faced recruit to unwilling combatant.

The piece gains its considerable power from David's position, not as an innocent victim of war, but as the son of patrician stock.

His parents encourage him to join the navy. He compares military training to cricket and refers to his underlings as "peasants". When war is declared, he announces that he's"off to the Falkland Islands to do some wog bashing".

He's a dolt - but one whose evident humanity always seems likely to rise to the surface. And at war, it does so.

Besides its emotional force, the play's other main strength lies in its insight into the combatants' perspective on the war.

Early in his tenure, David sees the absurdity in defending a strip of land that, months earlier, Britain had been planning to abandon - and to do so against opponents to whom Britain sells arms. In his letters to his young wife Christine (which sidetrack into plans for their cottage and concern for Mr Brush the cat), he's soon launching war-weary broadsides against a government and navy who're only in it for self-promotion.

Wright is admirably selfeffacing as David's dad - he's rumpled, and wistful, but never seeks more of the attention than the little that the play offers him. Jaspers exudes Hugh Grant-alike charm as David, whose nicebutdim demeanour hides no small compassion. They hold our attention with their words alone; the staging doesn't extend far beyond the pair standing up and sitting down, while a sole Union Flag hangs incongruously upstage.

This is a timely reminder of the reasons that governments usually invoke democracy, duty and war.

Until 14 September. Box office 020 7373 3842.

Copyright 2002
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