PUTTING A SOLDIER TOGETHER AGAIN 

As Robert Lawrence, the soldier who had half his skull shot away was half paralysed in the Falklands, sat in Charles Wood's kitchen the writer says, he could almost smell the blood on him.  This young, attractive, frail-looking man had killed people and done dreadful things, but his honesty was shocking.  So much so that  Wood, himself formerly a soldier, wasn't sure he wanted to make a film about Lawrence.  It took long talks before the writer was convinced and Tumbledown was made. 

Directed by Richard Eyre and produced by Richard Broke, whose Monocled Mutineer received great acclaim last year, Tumbledown stars Colin Firth as Lieutenant Robert Lawrence, MC. 

Lawrence sustained terrible injuries just a few days before his 22nd birthday, when he was hit in the head by a sniper's bullet during the battle for Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands.  Few thought he could survive.  A metal plate was put in his skull, his hair has grown back and the uselesss left arm he either places in his pocket or it lies , when he is sitting, crocked in his lap.  The effect is wholly insouciant.  Now only a light limp, the result of pain and formidable determination, reveals that the left leg is dragging.  When distressed, however, or excited, Lawrence 
levers himself to his feet.  He needs to feel movement; to have some form of action, restless and quick. 

Seeing Robert together with Colin Firth it is Lawrence, coming from a Service family (his father was in the RAF) a product of Fettes and the Scots Guards, who resembles the image of a starry young actor.  And it is Firth, with his comprehensive school background, who seems the Guardsman. 

Wood's initial inspiration came from a copy of an article an actor friend, Mark Burns, sent to him.  It was headlined Falkland Victims The Army Tried To Forget.  Burns met Lawrence when both were working at the 
Theatre of Comedy. 

Lawrence doesn't present himself as a victim and takes umbrage at the term.  As Wood tells it, "I met Robert at the same time as I saw Branagh's Henry V at Stratford.  It was  extraordinary.  In both I saw an apprehensive teenager, but at the same time I knew Robert could also lead.  It was Robert that made me write it.  I became very interested in Robert, you feel as if he could do anything." 

Controversy has dogged the production from its genesis.  The Scots Guards had the script as soon as it was written, four years ago.  Robert had been involved from the start and showed it to his colleagues.  And until the fracas kicked up by Ian Curteis, whose Falklands Play was dropped by the BBC, it looked as if they might have cooperation.  The Daily Mail picked up the story and the next day Tumbledown had become "the alternative play" and the stick with which to beat the BBC. 

Neither Curteis nor the Mail read the script.  In the end, it is about people, like the play itself, caught up in a conflict. 

"No one questions that Richard III or Henry V is not documentary, to the same extent neither is this." 

The title also creates offence, Lawrence points out: "The battle for Mount Tumbledown was not fought by Robert Lawrence.  It was fought by the second battalion of the Scots Guards, and a lot of people were hurt and injured.  Not only me." 

Filming affected everyone, including the crew.  Robert's presence on the set, working as consultant and assistant director, soon forced everyone to re-examine their beliefs. 

Not least Colin Firth, who says, "I discovered that I liked playing war more than I thought.  I felt an extraordinary excitement where I was behaving very violently and brutally.  I don't want to say this too slightly; I found it very 
disagreeable.  It's not that simplistic.  These things aren't that bloody easy. The fact is there isn't an easy answer, but most people won't admit to it." 

Firm friendships have resulted: sometimes funny, sometimes distressing.  Lawrence recalls: "The first scenes at Brize Norton, when I saw the make-up on Colin for the first time and wasn't ready for it.  The Fitzroy scene."  He turns away briefly.  "Two things happened there.  We found this guy and asked him to be an extra but he refused.  Then he explained he'd been a medic on the Canberra and had his first soldier die on him.  He didn't want to do it; it brought it too vividly back.  And when that happens, it brings it screaming home to you." 

Firth agrees.  "It was an emotional experience of seeing ghosts. But these ghosts were all psychologically and emotionally visible. 

"It was that whole business of discovering things about yourself on that mountain, as to what war's all about... 

"Throughout, I was ready for it to end.  I want to become normal again, I'd say.  All this isn't my experience, not my character, it's not me!  But towards the end there was the fear of losing it, and in the last few days I didn't want to let go.  And this is only a shadow of what real soldiers will go through." 

One day Firth recalls lying in a hospital bed, all his hair shaved off, surrounded by IVs, blood and brains, nauseous, sick and utterly distressed.  The next, he was outside, shooting the Tower of London scene, 
and mounting the Guard.  And standing in that brilliant uniform with huge bearskin, watching the precision drill to his orders, yes, he felt attractive; people were watching. 

Which is why the film is so important to Lawrence.  Young men are easily seduced into the services, but are not prepared for what may happen afterwards.  Nor does the Army aid in the adjustment; it was, perhaps,
he admits, naive of him to think so, but loyalty should be a two-way process.  And to date, from the Army there has been no demonstration.  As Lawrence says:"I have tried to be honest.  I wanted to take part in this war, I wanted to go out there and do my job.  But I've acknowledged that my life's been fucked up."

Some events in the past have made him feel bitter.  Like being banned from the Victory Parade: " We were specifically told the wounded couldn't take part.  I was told I couldn't wear my uniform at the St Paul's service, as if I had no right.  The Army's been using manipulation and using people for publicity.  The press were banned from meeting the wounded on return.  Then they hand-picked a small group to meet them."

"The fact that Robert with his service background, the fact that he feels he's been conned, means it's very important," says Wood. "Things didn't happen the way they should for him and for lots of other people.  We dress the whole thing up in political terms, when what we're really saying is -- please go down and kill, or be killed.  But we're certainly not giving them the things they should have afterwards."

"But remember this," Lawrence emphasises.  Once again he is on his feet and the injured hand is held close to his body, in anger and distress.  "This business of looking after the wounded, the manipulation of them that happened.  If this is happening to me, who is reasonably articulate and intelligent, and who comes from a Service background, think what is happening to the Welsh Guardsmen whose fathers are unemployed, or in
the mines.  Think what they've been through!"

Lawrence's personal motivation lay in finding a way of sorting out his own future in films.  Shortly, he starts work as a production executive on a new film in Holland.

 Wood explains: "He finally began to look at a character who was Robert Lawrence.  He trusted Richard Eyre and Colin Firth.  He managed to make that intellectual leap, and look at a character who was created by Colin and Richard, who was based on Robert Lawrence.  And the end result became very close to him."

As Lawrence clearly states, " Whereas people quite readily lay into me for looking back at the Falklands, what I do now is look to the future, and use my experiences to enhance it.  The whole point is that Charles wanted to do something; I wanted to do something.  And together we did it with the assistance of the BBC."

*Tumbledown is showing at the NFT on Saturday evening after which Richard Eyre, the director, will answer questions.  The film will be broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday, May 31.