Falkland Sound
The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

THIS is a history play, we are told at the opening of Brad Birch’s new work dealing with one of those nasty little wars that have peppered modern history since the end of World War II. 

Apart from around a thousand deaths of British and Argentine soldiers all told, and the usual legacy of lifelong physical and mental injuries, the inevitable consequences of any modern conflict, the only significant results were the fall of the ghastly Galtieri Argentine dictatorship and the regrettable resurrection of the equally ghastly Mrs Thatcher.

Birch’s play touches on the political context, with brief gung-ho comments from UK Spitting Image MPs pontificating on a situation they characteristically know nothing, let alone understand anything, about, but is mainly concerned with the effects on a handful of the few thousand inhabitants of the Falklands at the time.