Deep Cut: Striking a blow for truth in this military mystery
BETWEEN June 1995 and March 2002 four soldiers aged from 17 to 20 were all found shot dead at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey.
In each case the MOD insisted they had committed suicide and strongly refuted accusations of murder.
The case became a cause célèbre and there were many angry claims – particularly from the soldiers’ parents – of a major cover-up.
It was said that a vicious culture of bullying existed at the camp which had spiralled out of control and, when examined closely, the deaths of the four young recruits raised many worrying questions.
Now the whole saga has been turned into a tense and deeply thought-provoking play. The soldiers’ parents hope it will shame the Government into holding a public inquiry.
Playwright Philip Ralph has woven the action around Des and Doreen James, the shattered parents of pretty and lively 18-year-old Cheryl, who was found dead with a single bullet wound to her forehead.
Ciaran McIntyre as Des and Rhian Morgan as the emotional Doreen bring great intensity to their difficult roles. You can almost taste the tragedy and experience the frustration as their efforts to discover what really happened to Cheryl are blocked.
The scene in which Deepcut’s evasive commanding officer Colonel Nigel Josling finally visits the couple is gripping. Robert Bowman as the colonel imparts just the right touch of patronising, bumbling authority.
His trivialising attitude and pompous vagueness over whether he had met Cheryl’s parents before were such that you wanted to seize him by the throat.
The ever-excellent Simon Molloy is grippingly realistic as Nicholas Blake QC, whose Deepcut review into the deaths maintained all were suicides. He captures perfectly the mannerisms of an Establishment barrister, even down to the measured timbre of his tones and his lawyer’s stoop.
Much praise, too, for Rhian Blythe’s lively performance as Jonesy, Cheryl’s fellow girl-soldier. She reflects, with unerring accuracy, the mindset of the recruit – all jolly-chaps-together-isn’t-it-a-hoot. But she also brings out the darkness of it all, particularly when she walks into Cheryl’s rapidly cleared room. “This just empty room,” she says in a voice tragic with meaning.
At the core of this tightly directed (by Mick Gordon) drama is the ballistics expert Frank Swann, played with ebullience by Robert Blythe. We hear amazing evidence which firmly supports the view that the soldiers were murdered. Brandishing an imitation SA80 rifle, he demonstrates how impossible it would have been for Cheryl to have shot herself.
This docudrama packs a hefty punch and is all the more realistic in the intimacy of the small Tricycle Theatre. Perhaps it will stir some more consciences.
VERDICT 4/5
Tricycle Theatre, London, 020 7328 1000, until April 4
