THE TWO WORLDS OF CHARLIE F Touring

The production, which began with workshops and still looks like a workshop, is an illustrated lecture about soldiers returning from Afghanistan. The performing arts have been regularly used as recuperative therapy for the physically and psychologically wounded. The script by Owen Sheer is based on in-depth interviews with military personnel and their families. The cast is a mixture of soldiers and actors. The soldiers, some in wheelchairs and some with prosthetic limbs, play fictionalised versions of themselves. War, we are forcibly reminded, happens on the bodies of men. At the curtain call, the audience pays its respects to the injured and their courage with a standing ovation. The show is positive and immensely worthy but you must not go to it, expecting it to have the theatrical panache or the political clout that The Theatre of Scotland’s Black Watch had. The concept here is neither political, nor is it theatrical. It is therapeutic and on a much more modest scale and would probably work even better on television as a straightforward documentary.