The callousness of the military machine in dealing with shell shock is writ large in this paean for compassion towards the sufferer, yet one nevertheless finds it hard to connect with the characters.
John Wilson’s three-acter (played sensibly without intervals) has an outdated air about it which somehow blunts the potent gravitas of the subject. So, while one cannot help but leave the theatre with a seething indignation at the injustice of the firing squad, one does not come away with a sense of being scratched by even a ricochet of raw emotion.
In this First World War mire of physical atrocities, the military is not for moving when it comes to psychological casualties. Desertion is indefensible and an example has to be made.
As Private Arthur Hamp, Adam Gillen plays a 23-year-old northern millworker married with a child. He over-gilds the gormlessness making the character, who is understood to be slow-witted, seem vaguely sub-normal and questionable as to whether he should have been enrolled in the first place.
Daniel Weyman makes a compassionate Lt Hargreaves, committed to defending Private Hamp, and Dugald Bruce-Lockhart gives a spirited performance as the pragmatic Lt Webb. As the prosecuting officer, Martin Savage imbues his part with the coldness of one less interested in humanity than of dealing a savage justice by the book.
Tim Shortall’s set is an excellently observed piece. But in a play that would benefit from an infusion of freshness to embrace new audiences, this static drama may have benefited juxtaposed against a more contemporary minimalism where suggestion replaced realism.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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