UNDER FIRE (DANNY BOY)

 

In August, after the West watched in horror the desperate scenes of people clinging to planes in Kabul while US and Allied troops withdrew from Afghanistan, Conservative MP Tom Tugenhadt made an emotional speech in the House of Commons.

The MP for Tonbridge and Malling had served in Afghanistan as a Territorial Army officer and spoke of the "anger, grief and rage" Army veterans felt watching the scenes.

As an advisor to the Governor of Helmand, he recalled the joy of young girls and their families as they were allowed to attend schools which he expected would now close under Taliban rule.

In a memorable conclusion to his speech, he delivered this withering observation: "This doesn't need to be defeat but at the moment it damn well feels like it."

Historians will in future decades cast further light on the catastrophic mistakes that the US and its allies made in Afghanistan and also Iraq.

Dramatists and filmmakers will also explore the personal toll.

Many have already started.

Enter writer Robert Jones and director Sam Miller who have taken one such story from Iraq and turned it into a BBC2 TV movie 'Danny Boy'.

Belfast actor Anthony Boyle plays Colour Sergeant Brian Wood, an English soldier in the Princess of Wales' Regiment who received a Military Cross for gallantry for his actions during the Battle of Danny Boy near Amarah in southern Iraq.

Members of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders clashed with the Mahdi Army during an ambush in May 2004.

Wood was decorated for leading a bayonet charge during the battle, as the Princess of Wales Regiment came to the aid of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Boyle's Wood is portrayed as a decent soldier who, on his return from Iraq, doesn't bask that much in his heroism on the battlefield.

While delivering a lecture to recruits, he is stunned when he is escorted away by Military Police after Toby Jones' lawyer Phil Shiner starts to investigate claims that Wood and his unit were involved in war crimes.

Jones' Shiner, who has built a reputation for pursuing cases of alleged human rights abuses by the Army, engages Kiran Sonia Sawar's Deena Aayari and Tom Vaughan Lawlor's barrister called Patrick in preparations for an inquiry that will look into claims that Woods' regiment maltreated unarmed civilians.

The case is built on the evidence of an eyewitness and Shiner's firm belief that the allegations he is pursuing are sound.

Robert Jones' script flits between the building pressure on Wood as he prepares for his appearance before the inquiry, Shiner's unrelenting focus on exposing what he believes is wrongdoing and excerpts of what really happened during the Battle of Danny Boy.

He does a solid job in these flashback sequences, bringing more detail to light that will eventually exonerate Wood as if he is a soldier trying to piece together memories of what went on.

Director Sam Miller also delivers a sturdy drama, without really setting the screen alight visually.

He handles the action sequences particularly well, converting the sense of confusion on the battlefield.

Miller also stewards his cast effectively.

It helps, though, that Toby Jones is around, given that he is one of the best character actors working on the big and small screen these days.

Jones delivers a typically fastidious performance as Shiner whose determination to expose wrongdoing blinds himself from his own failings.

Boyle does a great job too as a war hero cracking under the strain as doubts surface about his heroism and his character.

Leah McNamara gels well with Boyle as his supportive wife, Lucy and Alex Ferns is effective as his pugnacious ex-Army father Gavin who is outraged by the treatment of his son but struggles to really see how it is impacting him.

Sawar impresses as Shiner's  weary colleague and Tom Vaughan Lawlor doesn't disappoint either.

While the drama undoubtedly blasts Shiner, who was struck off for misconduct during the inquiry, there is an attempt to understand his motivation and acknowledge the importance of holding the Army to account for its actions. 

Ultimately though Shiner's pride prevents him from seeing his own fall, as he refuses to countenance that he might be wrong.

Airing around the same time as a legacy inquest declared British paratroopers killed 10 innocent civilians in the Ballymurphy area of Belfast in 1971, that pride has been equally applicable to the British Army.

The key question is whether the Army and those who hold them to the highest standards have learned the lessons from the collapse of the al-Sweady Inquiry and the findings of the Ballymurphy Inquest.

Time will tell as human rights activists, journalists, lawyers and politicians examine events in Afghanistan and Iraq.

('Danny Boy' was broadcast on BBC2 on May 12, 2021)