Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Robin Berry.

It is to be argued that it is only time that moves on, that human affairs and endeavours never seem to get beyond a point where the same battles are being waged, over the same land, over the same intolerable points. For the people of North Africa, for those behind the Middle East veil, the sands may shift with the wind but the human propensity for war is always very firmly entrenched in the damned and the destructive.

The parallels between the campaign in North Africa during World War Two and the first Gulf War at the start of the 1990s is one that in any decent society, people would be ashamed of how the situation came about. That by the simple act of arming one side so heavily in their war with their neighbour; the powers of so called right and might were able to bring into being a monster with a very unhealthy appetite. It is down to the very decent men on both sides who could see the folly of such actions during the dark decade of evil across Europe and the likes of soldiers who were guided by Colonel Tim Collins respectful approach during the Gulf War, that the Scorched Earth policy never really gained momentum.

What to those though who fought in the campaigns, those who saw the reckless fight in the North Africa desert, the right course of action in fighting Rommel, for them Scorched was just the state of mind they were left in as their minds were bleached by the relentless sun, the heroes of battles on a continent that had nothing to do with the rage boiling inside Europe, now may be very few and far between but the stories of their lives live on.

Robin Berry’s hour long monologue was littered to the point of overwhelming as his character fought in his mind once more in the sand and deserts, the mental burn of anguish, of searing damnation and of loss ever present on the stage and the simple acts of regret at some courses of action, the reminder in the gun he kept by his side at all times, an act of brutality which some never escaped from. The blurred lines between the young man fighting in a war he didn’t start and the images and reports coming in from Iraq during Operation Desert Storm were to become poignant and clear as the hour inside Zoo Southside progressed.

A stirring performance by Robin Berry and a play to feel the scars of the past rise and char as the world continues in its madness. Scorched might go down as one of the performances of this year’s Fringe.

Ian D. Hall