Deep Cut

The smiling face of Private Cheryl James will be hauntingly familiar to anyone who followed, with increasing horror, the media coverage of the four deaths of young soldiers at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey.

Four suicides were recorded at the site between 1995 and 2002, despite the fact that two of the dead soldiers suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Cheryl, the beloved daughter of Des and Doreen James, was found with a single bullet wound to her head.

Most of those who have heard about Deepcut will likely already suspect that there was a cover-up. It doesn't take a demonstration from a ballistics expert to demonstrate that no-one is capable of shooting himself twice in the head with an army-issue rifle.
Philip Ralph's play, carefully assembled from first-hand accounts and official sources, goes beyond the headlines to untangle a mess of compromised evidence, distorted reports and political sleight-of-hand.

At the centre of it all are Des and Doreen, treated with disregard by those to whom they entrusted their daughter, and betrayed by descriptions of her character provided by people who never met her. Rhian Morgan, as Doreen, quietly captures the couple's dilemma as she winces at accounts of Cheryl's sexual relationships. It seems likely that any further investigation of Privates A and B, her two lovers, would have involved much more public disclosure without any promise of justice. As Des, Ciaran McIntyre attempts to clarify a reference to an incident cited in the Deepcut Review, but seems on some level aware of the futility of his explanation.

No parents would easily accept that their child was suicidal - to do so would seem to indict themselves. But who else will take on the army, the legal system and the government in an attempt to find the truth? At first it's impossible to fathom why ballistics expert Frank Swann refused to co-operate with investigators. However, it gradually becomes clear that the parents are unlikely to find either answers or consolation, regardless of how many enquiries are conducted and what evidence is presented. The evaporation of this hope is captured poignantly in Mick Gordon's production by a moment of silent chaos.

This is not a sentimental tribute to those who died, or an attack on the senior officers who failed to prevent four unexplained deaths that look very much like murders. Instead it's an urgent, measured account of one couple's quest for the truth and the frightening lengths to which those in power will go to obscure it.