Originally commissioned and broadcast as part of BBC Radio 4’s More Than Words listening festival in 2012, Owen Sheers’ uncompromising piece about three young men from Bristol who enlist in the army, and the ensuing price they and their partners and relatives pay for that decision explodes onto the Bristol Old Vic stage with a young cast on top of its game. This is a tour-de-force worth catching, and surely the antidote of antidotes to all war games-style army adverts. This at last is an anti-war commentary that recognises that physical and mental injuries are not solely experienced by those paid to step into danger, but by all those close to them. There is a ripple effect to heartache and Pink Mist doesn’t flinch from it.
Combining research and interviews with war veterans, ancient sources such as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad and the medieval Welsh poem Y Gododdin with everyday Bristol vernacular, Sheers has built a timeless narrative that far from being a predictable rail against violence, delves deep into the DNA of nostalgia, guilt, loss, friendship, love and hope.
Directed quite superbly by John Retallack and George Mann, we follow the fates of friends Arthur, Taff and Hads as they leave their dull but ‘safe’ jobs, and their partners and families as they nervously set off for army training in Catterick.
Phil Dunster plays Arthur, nicknamed ‘King’, and is the main narrator and focus of the tale. He commands the stage throughout in a completely assured performance – looking and sounding a star in the making. Owen’s script gives Dunster an extraordinary range of emotions to explore, from battlefield horror to intimate reflection when holding a broken bird’s egg. Peter Edwards as fellow combatant Taff, and Alex Stedman as Hads are Arthur’s fellow squaddies taking on the ‘Terry’ Taliban. Each bring a visceral portrayal of the realities of losing limbs or mental stability, unaware of the effect their injuries are having on their families.
It is the women in the piece who are the bookkeepers of pain, helpless witnesses to damage. In one extraordinary moment Erin Doherty as Taff’s wife Lisa unleashes an animal cry of anger which shakes the theatre. And while Rebecca Hamilton as Arthur’s girlfriend Gwen quietly rues the loss of her boyfriend’s old nature, Zara Ramm as Had’s mother laments the physical incapacities of her son.
Of the production John Retallack says that he and fellow director George Mann wanted to bring a physical language to the production, to express Sheers’ poetry through the body. This they have done with enormous effect. The cast of six move as one throughout, almost in dance, but sometimes akin to Tai-chi form. The movement is highly expressive and brings the six players together in a way that enhances the idea of their closeness and belonging. On a stark extended platform stage the action is all the more intimately presented to the audience while Jon Nicholls’ excellent sound track fuels our imagined journeys to battle zones in Afghanistan, the disco at Bristol’s V-Shed, and the quiet of the Avon Gorge.
On the dust jacket of Owen Sheers’ book, there is a quote from Captain Ed Poynter of C Company 2 Rifles. He says that the poem “captures the reality of what it’s like to adjust to ‘normality’ when one comes home from war”. It is in this aftershock ‘back story’ to heroism that Pink Mist finds its unique voice.
A pink mist incidentally is a military description for someone who has taken a hit or been blown up. All that’s left of this human being is just a brief fine fog of blood droplets in the air. You don’t often see that in army adverts. ★★★★★ Simon Bishop 4/07/15
