Tumbledown - Charles Wood

 Tumbledown is the other controversial Falklands Play.  Ian Curteis wrote the actual Falklands Play, a hymn of praise to the leadership of Margaret Thatcher, which was commissioned by the BBC soon after the war ended but shelved indefinitely when it turned out that the British public were not quite so gung-ho about the imperialistic adventure and had rather fallen out of love with Margaret Thatcher.  In the end it wasn't produced until 2000 by which time tempers had cooled but Curteis's technique had dated badly.  It was recently reshown on BBC 4 for the fortieth anniversary of the war.  It was very old-fashioned but I was impressed by the character of Curteis's Maggie (for clarity, let it be known, my hatred for Mrs T, whose reign of terror I endured in full, is second to none, my contempt for electioneering military escapades likewise).  Some of the other acting, however (who was that as Michael Foot?) was atrocious.

I digress...  Tumbledown is the other controversial TV play about the Falklands War, produced by the BBC in May 1988, despite the screeches of protest from the Daily Mail and others.  I can't remember why the Mail considered the true story of 21 year-old Robert Lawrence, who was horribly wounded just before the end of hostilities, was somehow controversial.  Lawrence was a hero, he responded heroically to his injury, and who was hidden from the cameras at the state memorial service in case he upset the viewers.  Who, war-supporter or not, wouldn't empathise with young Robert and his family, who behaved with magnificent dignity.

Wood was famously a dramatist of war.  His stage plays, Dingo, H and so on, are military-based.  He wrote both The Charge of the Light Brigade and Dick Lester's How I Won the War.  He was an admirer of the front line soldier, an enemy of war - exactly the stance required for this story.  He does it beautifully.  There are many profoundly moving moments - so much so that I couldn't bear to watch it again when it too was shown for the anniversary.  So I read it for the fourth or fifth time again.  Superb.