It's some time since West Yorkshire Playhouse commissioned an inflammatory anti-war play - 14 years, in fact, when Trevor Griffiths's account of the first war against Saddam, The Gulf Between Us, prompted demonstrations outside the theatre.
It is hard to imagine that anyone would find reason to boycott Colin Teevan's drama, set in the troubled hiatus between the toppled statue and the sexed-up dossier, in which a bungled checkpoint incident leaves a car full of unarmed Bedouin dead. The men were en route to pay ransom money to a tribal chief, and the guilt-stricken commanding officer resolves to complete the commission for them, taking three subordinates, an Iraqi translator and a female BBC reporter along for the ride.
Teevan uses all the devices of a modern thriller to steer the action towards a symbolic destination: the desert shrine known as Kabro a Generals, established as a mausoleum by Alexander the Great in a previous western attempt to effect a regime change.
Yet Teevan has a difficult task in persuading us to believe that a responsible platoon commander would take such unwarranted action, which obliges him to load the drama with back-story, explaining how the officer remains haunted by a similar incident in a previous posting in Ulster. The thematic detour places psychological credibility above dramatic clarity; there are times in this long, complex evening when you're left wishing it were possible to deal with one war at a time.
Yet it is still a bold piece of commissioning, and Ian Brown's production is full of admirable detail. Among a clutch of strong performances, Matthew Flynn as the troubled officer, Flora Montgomery as the tenacious journalist and Kevork Malikyan as the translator are all outstanding. There were quite a few shell-shocked faces on the way out. And a conspicuous lack of protesters on the way in.
· Until October 21. Box office: 0113-213 7700.
