The Two Worlds of Charlie F.   Starring: The Bravo 22 Company Brightspark Productions RRP: £19.99 BSPK796 Certificate: 15 Available 26 November 2012

War is one of those aspects of human behaviour which is most often portrayed by those who have no experience of its realities. The plethora of Hollywood movies have little in common with reality and haven’t since the string of Vietnam films, especially Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) which was taken from his own experience.

The Two Worlds of Charlie F. (2012 - 1 hr, 39 min, 04 sec) is collaboration between, poet and author Oliver Sheers and soldiers who had served overseas in real war zones; the play was directed by Stephen Rayne. The play was organised and funded by The Royal British Legion and The Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass Trust, the proceeds of the DVD will go to these two organisations.

The filmed play is populated not with actors, but with service men and women, sharing their experiences with the audience as part of The Bravo 22 Company, which is a project designed to help ex-service men and women learn new skills and rebuild confidence. The play had only a limited run, but there is a possible plan for the play to tour again in 2013, so if you’re one of the many, who missed this, now is your chance to catch the play on DVD.

The film opens with real shots before we are presented with an unnamed soldier awakening in a hospital ward. Injured and disorientated he verbally lashes out believing that he is still in combat. From here the play moves back to the recruitment of our raw recruits into the military.

The journey from recruit, through training and then through the horrors and camaraderie of fighting in Afghanistan is told with equal measures of humour and pathos. The play is based on real instances, portrayed by real soldiers and as such succeeds in getting inside the inner world of the soldiers. The play avoids easy answers, as for the most part none exists. It is all the more moving being rooted in real experience, portrayed by real soldiers, any pretence of Hollywood notions of bravery and violence are stripped away, as one soldier points out it is with weak and vulnerable flesh that wars are fought.

The acting is surprisingly good, there is the occasional faltered line, but otherwise the honesty with which the story is told shines through, from the dark comedy, to the sequence where they bare their souls to explain the pain we have asked them to go through on our behalf. It’s often difficult to watch, justifiably so, we as a society should not be sending our young men off to war if we are going to turn our backs on them or hide in a Hollywood version of the real cost.

The picture is good and although it’s a record of a play, it has been filmed with various dynamic shots to enhance the narrative. The disc has no extras, but then once you have watched the play there is little more to be said, a trite making of would have felt out of place. If you thought War Horse was moving, it time to try the real deal.

8

Charles Packer