FALKLAND SOUND. To 14 September.
London
FALKLAND SOUND
by Louise Page
adapted from A Message from the Falklands by David Tinker.
Concordance and Culturcated Theatre Company at the Finborough Theatre To 14 September 2002
Tue-Sat 7pm, Sun 3pm
Runs 1hr No interval
TICKETS 020 7373 3842
Review Timothy Ramsden 25 August
A good revival of a documentary on the 1982 Falklands conflict where the viewpoint is validated by its surprising source.To begin with, the Falkland sound is Elgar: rural, conservative England, Worcestershire and the Malverns. And it's tweedy, 4-wheel drive Berkshire, private education and Dartmouth naval college. From here, as this valuable revival shows in a 20-years' perspective, came a crescendo of rage against stupidity, lies and self-serving politics.
Apart from a few explanatory comments from his father, Falkland Sound is composed out of letters home from Lieutenant David Tinker. He was no blimpish buffoon. Bright at school, he was an amateur poet (allowed to send one message home from the Falklands, Tinker sent a Yeats poem).
Patriotic and honest (he told the security services he would refuse to staff a nuclear submarine), his love of England turned to rage as the futile hypocrisy of the Falklands campaign became clear.
'Thatcher' first appears in the letters in connection with the man repairing the roof of David's Welsh Border dream-cottage. Afterwards, it refers to the Prime Minister whose government was only weeks away, when the Argentines invaded, from leaving the Islands ungarrisoned and months from removing British citizenship from the islanders.
Tinker's letters show the 'war' as a mix of hypocrisy and political opportunism, while the hyped-up British know-how was a lie; the Navy lacked essential air-cover and early warning of attack. Yet the Service connived with Downing Street, in an opportunity to reverse intended cuts in its budget (Tinker, dead at 25, had decided to leave 'at the next round of redundancies', speaking of these as a matter of course).
Sent to study History at Birmingham University, he was able to see this conflict in chilling terms of modern warfare, where space-age technology severs destructive power from any link with human endeavour.
His background and the anger in the later letters make David Tinker the Falklands' Siegfried Sassoon. Jennifer Lunn's production rightly lets the words tell their story. Simon Wright shows controlled grief and an unspoken sense of loss as David's father.
Edward Jaspers' David perhaps overplays the boyish enthusiasm while his final anguish risks suggesting his death is foreseeable: Tinker died (two days before Argentina surrendered) because an anti-Exocet defence missile inadequately deflected its target. But Jaspers catches an intelligent optimism which emphasises the human loss, giving a tragic light to this increasingly intense documentary.
Hugh: Simon Wright
David: Edward Jaspers
Director: Jennifer Lunn
Lighting: Jerry Sullivan
"Falkland Sound" is followed nightly at the Finborough, on a separate ticket, by performances of Patrick McCabe's play "Frank Pig Says Hello'
2002-08-27 01:33:37