Between June 1995 and March 2002, four young soldiers four young people were killed at Deep Cut barracks. The events surrounding their deaths remain unexplained to this day, save for the knowledge that the deaths were caused by gunshot wounds. Army and police enquiries concluded that suicide was the most likely cause of death in all four instances, though investigation by independent ballistics expert Frank Swann suggested that this theory is impossible; they could not have shot themselves. As yet there has been no public enquiry.
Philip Ralphs compelling and consuming new play, Deep Cut, produced by the new writing powerhouse, Sherman Cymru, charts the struggle of Private Cheryl James parents one of the soldiers killed at Deep Cut to discover the truth surrounding their daughters death. Ralph has spent the last two years gathering verbatim testimony, drawn from face-to-face interviews with Des and Doreen James (Cheryls parents), other friends and colleagues and various professionals involved in the various investigations. Public statements made by the Government and public record documents, including the infamous and controversial Blake Review, were also used by Ralph in creating the play.
Director Mick Gordons resulting production is a thoroughly absorbing account of events, blending the personal, the public and the political and so allowing us to see the grief of Cheryls parents combined with the effect that the intense media speculation and at times disrespect shown by the armed forces and the judiciary has on them.
We begin with a phone interview between Nicky Campbell and Des James, which instantly gives an idea both of the context and the scale of the Deep Cut enquiry. We, the audience, have been welcomed into the James living room for a candid lecturer / presentation / chat, which is interrupted sporadically by journalists, a Queens Counsellor, a ballistics expert, an MP and the CO of Deep Cut at the time of Cheryls death.
This living room set-up gives a succinct insight into the public intrusion this family must have experienced into their personal grief, but it also serves to illustrate the many bureaucratic and authoritative forces that they must combat in order to discover the truth; the army, the government and the police making cock-ups and possibly cover-ups so as to avoid potential admission of fallibility or responsibility.
The ensemble cast put in excellent performances, telling this complex true story with clarity and precision, giving us a real understanding of events but also imbuing great emotional resonance. Igor Vasiljevs set, also, is superb a private space becoming cluttered with public documents, private grief and political debate.
No conclusion is offered as there is none yet made; the Government have declined to hold a public enquiry and show no intention of doing so. Deep Cut barracks is to be sold-off in 2013, though Des James, Cheryls father, says that he does not want to see the barracks flattened before any meaningful enquiry has taken place. And so continues their struggle, not necessarily a struggle to be proved right, but to discover the truth.
