Black Watch: The story of the play

The Black Watch is an ancient regiment, as the drum at its museum in Perth shows. Campaign and battle honours date from 1759, and include the Napoleonic, first and second world wars Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian

A Black Watch captain leads a foot patrol into Zubayr, south of Basra, southern Iraq, in 2003 Photograph: Captain Angus Beaton/AP

Friend or foe ... Ali Craig in the National Theatre Of Scotland's Black Watch, at the Barbican Theatre, captures the feeling of a street patrol in Iraq Photograph: Tristram Kenton/Tristram Kenton

Black Watch was also named best new play, and won awards for best theatre choreographer and best sound design Photograph: Manuel Harlan/PR

The Black Watch battle group moves back to southern Iraq after their deployment to Camp Dogwood, south of Baghdad, in late 2004 Photograph: Steve Lewis/AP

Black Watch went around the world before coming to London. It wowed audiences in New York, where John Heilpern, in the New York Observer, said the play was "among the most compelling theatre pieces you could wish to see" Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian

The National Theatre of Scotland turned down the offer to perform Black Watch at London's Olivier, because it couldn't accommodate the production's traverse staging Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian

The play captures some elements of the horror of war as well as the politics behind it Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian