Royal Court, London
Many years ago in Beyond the Fringe there was a famous sketch called The Aftermyth of War. This is precisely the subject of this promising debut play by 23-year-old Hayley Squires, presented as part of the Young Writers festival. This time the war in question is Afghanistan, but Squires uses the uplifting voice of Vera Lynn to reinforce her point that we still like to obscure the reality of military death.
Squires focuses on the aftermath of the shooting of a young Kentish soldier, Bobby, while on patrol in Helmand province. He ostensibly died a hero but, on the day of his funeral, we see his siblings and best friend bitterly arguing about the real Bobby. According to his drug-dealer brother Danny, he was a total wimp who, in civilian life, wouldn't even defend his sister Emily; and Emily herself, although dressed to the nines to pay a TV tribute to Bobby, admits she hasn't the vaguest idea why he died or what he was fighting for. Interwoven with this bilious episode are three scenes, set a few months later, between Bobby's 16-year-old cousin Charlie, and her friend Sammy, suggesting that, if the concept of heroism survives, it is on the personal rather than the public level.
At times, Squires spells out her points too explicitly. Emily brusquely tells Bobby's friend "We aren't good people, Lee, we're shit," to reinforce the argument that bereavement cannot sanctify the dead soldier's thieving family. Squires is at her best, in fact, when exploring the tentative nature of adolescent passion: the scenes between the two 16-year-olds have a real glow, not least when the school drop-out Sammy gives a vivid account of the plot of Romeo and Juliet based entirely on the Baz Luhrman movie.
In Jo McInnes's production, Ted Riley and Abby Rakic-Platt invest their adolescent encounter with the perfect mix of verbal bravura and emotional shyness. And, even if the adult scenes are more brutal, Danielle Flett as Bobby's sister and Daniel Kendrick as his loyal friend intelligently suggest they are using the reluctant hero's death to mask their own insecurity. Squires clearly owes a debt to Sarah Kane but, given time, it's one that may be repaid with interest.