Black Watch, BBC Four/iPlayer, Sunday
This year marks a significant milestone for Gregory Burke’s Theatre landmark Black Watch, the play about Scottish soldiers serving in Iraq in 2004. Produced by the National Theatre of Scotland, it was first performed on 1 August 2006 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, placing it in the same generation as the young men it portrays.
BBC repeat marks the anniversary
To coincide with the anniversary, BBC Four aired a performance filmed in Dingwall and first shown in 2007. For viewers who had never seen it, the broadcast offered 94 minutes of stirring, scabrously funny and deeply moving drama. For those revisiting it, the chance was to marvel all over again.
The Edinburgh production later toured internationally and won four Oliviers, along with a Herald Angel. It also helped launch or accelerate the careers of several Scottish actors, including Emun Elliott (Guilt, The Gold), Brian Ferguson (Rebus, Dept Q) and, in a later production, Jack Lowden (Slow Horses).
Why the play still lands
One early scene sets the tone. A writer arrives in a pool room in Fife to interview a group of ex-squaddies, who would rather dismiss his naive questions — “What was it like?” — than talk about anything that really matters, especially their mates. “Are you going to use us?” asks one, wary that the outsider is just the latest in a long line of people looking to take something from them.
The regiment has been sent north to the “Triangle of Death”, and the phrase quickly proves fitting. Caught between US air strikes and Iraqi suicide bombers, the soldiers rely on gallows humour to get through. “This is like the Perth Road on a Saturday night, but wi’ air strikes,” says the sergeant to a soldier from Dundee.
At the centre of the production is Cammy, played by an outstanding Brian Ferguson, who carries the story without faltering. The staging has not dated: the pool table moment, the songs and the balletic dance all flow together before building to the final scenes of chaos, terror and loss.
On screen, the emotion is close up
Some theatre productions can lose impact when filmed, but that is not the case here. In close-up, the soldiers’ feelings are written clearly on their faces, if viewers can bear to look. And at home, or in the cinema, there is no such thing as a bad seat.
One moment that stayed with the reviewer came at the end, when the lights went up and the actors took their bow at the Highland Football Academy. The applause began in a slightly stunned, hesitant way, then grew louder as some people stood. Before long, the response had become a full standing ovation.
Black Watch remains unmissable, and it is still available on iPlayer.
Also on Sunday night: Sunny Nights
STV followed with Sunny Nights, an Australia-set comedy that arrives with strong credentials, including director Trent O’Donnell, part of the team behind the sleeper hit Colin From Accounts. The cast is led by Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden.
The series follows siblings Martin and Vicki, who have travelled to Sydney to sell a new spray tan. Martin is really trying to win back his wife, while Vicki is caught in another in a series of bad life choices. A local who used to be bad, but is now “sort of okay”, agrees to help them — for a price — and the caper begins. A giant crocodile also appears early on, adding to the mix. The series is on ITVX.