Two years after its Edinburgh festival debut, Gregory Burke's celebrated play makes it to London, and proves worth the wait. John Tiffany's National Theatre of Scotland production works even better in a reconfigured Barbican than in the school gym where I first saw it. On a second viewing, Burke's play also seems richer-textured.
Based on interviews with Black Watch squaddies returned from Iraq, the play is, in part, a tribute to the tribalism of military life. The men make it clear that they are fighting not for Britain or for Scotland but for their regiment, and, ultimately, their mates. The sense of camaraderie is movingly caught in a final image of Cammy, who determined to quit after two tours of duty, sealing the body bags containing his colleagues' corpses. He is told by his officer he doesn't have to do it: his instinct, however, tells him he does.
While acknowledging the inbred loyalty of army life, Burke neither sentimentalises the soldiers nor ignores the lunacy of the war. The "golden thread" of regimental tradition has, he suggests, been snapped by the regiment's absorption into a larger unit and the disillusion of the soldiers with their task in Iraq.
Although Burke disclaims a political intention, the play reinforces an officer's description of Iraq as "the biggest western foreign policy disaster ever". Burke honours the men while deploring the cause in which they are involved.
Steven Hoggett's movement adds to the sense of heroic futility, not least in an astonishing final sequence in which a parade formation disintegrates. This is a glowing ensemble production and a feather in the cap of Scotland's peripatetic National Theatre.
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