A Pyre for Private James

The image with which A Pyre for Private James, a Wednesday Play presentation broadcast on 30 November 1966, opens is one of extraordinary visual and moral force: a blazing hut in a forsaken Malayan jungle clearing, its flames reflected in the stunned faces of a reconnaissance patrol. The body being consumed is that of Private James, a young national serviceman. Among his horrified comrades stands one figure strangely untouched by the horror—Major Carlyle, the company commander, almost light-hearted, disturbingly at ease with the day’s dreadful work. Within minutes, the play has established both its mystery and its menace.

A fortnight later Carlyle is on trial, accused of the wilful murder of the private. What initially appears to be an open-and-shut case is treated as such by the prosecuting counsel, who would like the whole disagreeable business concluded with the minimum of fuss. But Simon Raven’s script steadily dismantles this convenient certainty. As the court martial proceeds, it becomes clear that the events in that small, suffocating patch of jungle were far more complex, and far more tragic, than the row of steely lieutenant-colonels could ever have imagined.

At the centre of the drama lie unsettling questions. Did Carlyle shoot James, or burn him alive? Was there ever any real danger from terrorists in an area that had been peaceful for two years? And how far into the private and emotional past of both men must the court probe in order to explain the Major’s extraordinary behaviour? The answers, when they come, are as disturbing as they are moving.

Raven’s most daring stroke is to pivot the play away from conventional questions of guilt and innocence toward the dangerous terrain of motive and obsession. Carlyle’s defence, delivered in a highly charged emotional confession, reveals a man who loved the young private like a son. That love—protective to the point of delusion—clouded his military judgement, led him to imagine enemies where none existed, and ultimately drove him to what he believed was a mercy killing. It is a devastating portrait of affection curdled into destruction.

Basil Henson gives a remarkable performance as Major Carlyle. Worn, obsessed and rigidly correct, he conveys the impossible tension of a man trying to reconcile regimental discipline with suppressed, almost unbearable affection. His delivery of a reprimand heavy with unspoken love is particularly striking. David Conville’s spruce and energetic captain provides a sharp contrast, while Dudley Simpson is excellent as the disgruntled Corporal Oates, grounding the drama in the resentments and confusions of the rank and file.

Simon Raven, already an experienced novelist and playwright, demonstrates here a firm grasp of both psychological complexity and theatrical economy. His later adaptation of Edward and Mrs Simpson would confirm his skill at dramatizing private emotions under public scrutiny, but A Pyre for Private James is among his most unsettling works.

Frustratingly—and perhaps deliberately—the play ends without a final verdict. The absence of closure denies the audience easy moral comfort, forcing us instead to sit with the ambiguity of Carlyle’s actions and the terrible cost of misplaced love. It is a disturbing, intelligent drama that lingers long after the flames of its opening image have died down.