Lord Cashman Lends Support To Play Which Tackles Sexual Abuse And Cover Ups

The cast of a new play called At Ease will be joined by Lord Michael Cashman, on Friday 5 June, during rehersals to lend his support to the play which tackles the issues surrounding historic sexual abuse and cover-ups.

Victims of historical physical and sexual army abuse are given a voice in a new play in rehearsal in Birmingham.

Lord Cashman appears as a character in the play.

At the centre of this highly unusual play is the correspondence between one-time Household Cavalryman, Alex Rees who was sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder, and Michael (Lord) Cashman, who was an intended target. Rees writes he was brutally tortured and raped while in the army in the 1970s. Rees, who died in 2002, identifies adults involved in the bullying and in the parties in which abuse took place. He also identifies army personnel involved in cover-ups. Rees is, at last, given an opportunity to put his story to the public via his extraordinary correspondence.

The bond between Rees and Cashman, a life-long campaigner for LGBT rights, is both strange and poignant.

In an attempt to right some wrongs, while contributing to the present debate around historical abuse by giving voice to Rees and others, theatre company DD Arts Birmingham is piloting its new play, AT EASE, from June 17, raising these issues, together with other contemporaneous accounts.

Pilot performances 17-20 June: Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham. 0121 200 0946.

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