The Two Worlds of Charlie F

A group of soldiers have been wowing audiences across the country with their real-life stories of courage. After a tour that has taken in 14 stages across the UK and Canada "The Two Worlds of Charlie F" is coming to an end.  

The project was the conceived by Theatre Royal producer Alice Driver after a chance meeting. “I met a surgeon in Birmingham who introduced me to a military patient,” she explains. “He told me that when you get injured, you lose your purpose – but you also lose your voice. I thought it made sense to create the first theatre recovery project for wounded, injured and sick service personnel. To give them their voices back."

The Two Worlds of Charlie F examines life before, during and after injury; it is a soldier’s view of service, injury and recovery. Moving from the war in Afghanistan, through the dream world of morphine-induced hallucinations to the physio rooms of Headley Court, it explores the consequences of injury, both physical and psychological – and its effects on others as the soldiers fight to win a new battle for survival at home. “The professional actors in the show act, while the soldiers tell their stories,” says Alice. “The characters are on stage with real injuries – it couldn’t get more powerful.”

The play is personal and moving, but it also has a huge amount of humour and humanity. “It’s raw, it’s poignant, it’s funny,” says Alice. “It tells the public a story we don’t often hear about. We hear about deaths, but not the wounded. It is not political. Regardless of how you feel about war, this story is inspiring. It’s about joining the biggest regiment, the regiment of the wounded, who fight their battle in sitting rooms and minds every day. It normalises disability in the way that the Paralympics did.”

Cassidy Little, 32, an ex-Royal Marine who plays lead character Corporal Charlie Fowler, was recruited for the part at Headley Court just two months after his 2011 injury. Cassidy was seriously injured by an IED blast in Afghanistan– an explosion that killed two of his comrades “Doing this has helped all of us, there’s absolutely no doubt about that,” he adds. “The play gives an insight into the secret world of what it means to be a soldier one day, a casualty the next, and a civilian the day after that. The evolution is cathartic. The more you explore what has happened to you, the better off you are. The better you explore the dark caverns of your mind that are created by the trauma you’ve gone through. This has got me closer to the person I was before I got injured.”

Fellow cast member Darren Swift, 48 who lost both legs in a Northern Ireland terrorist attack in 1982 agrees: “It’s a great play, and it’s all about us and our experiences – so it has helped me a lot. I’ve loved being involved, and the way it shows our journeys back to Civvy Street is great.

The last few tickets remain for Manchester.

Opera House, Manchester 9-14th July 2014

Website: www.charlie-f.com

Twitter: @CharlieF_Tour

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CharlieFTour