Blackwatch: SKINNYFEST

The Iraq War has become so marred by controversy and suspect political agendas that separating the truth from the fiction has been rendered all but impossible. Politicians and supposedly unbiased news coverage is far removed from the reality of what is occurring in Iraq on a daily basis. Black Watch aims to redress the balance by presenting a theatrical investigation based on interviews with the soldiers of Black Watch, who have been the vanguard of countless British military expeditions from Waterloo and the Somme to Kosovo. In Iraq, it was the Black Watch regiment that relieved American forces at Camp Dogwood.

The dramatic result is brutal honesty, an unabashed appraisal of fighting in a campaign like Iraq straight, as it were, from the horse's mouth: "It's a buzz, you're in a war ay, and you're doing the job you're trained for, but it's no like they're a massive threat tay you or tay your country, you're no defending your country, we're invading their country and fucking their day up."

With a cast of ten, Gregory Burke's politically charged theatrical production gives an insight into the psyche of young men caught up in violent times. It offers not only an unauthorized biography of this legendary Scottish regiment, but by way of dealing directly with the accounts of those who experience the atrocities first-hand, it gives a stark, visceral and unmediated account of the events. The play aims to be contemporary in terms of its subject matter whilst being universal and timeless in its appeal.

Gregory Burke's past plays should be recommendation enough: he has received critical acclaim for previous Festival successes such as Gagarin Way and The Straits. These calmly original revelations from the inside the war-machine promise to be necessarily shocking.